{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_28484/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_28484","id":"gutenberg_28484","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28484","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Hamilton, William, Sir, 1788-1856","Mill, John Stuart, 1806-1873. Examination of Sir William Hamilton's philosophy"],"text":"Produced by David Clarke, Tim Krajcar and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive/Million Book Project)\n\n\n\n\n\n                  THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED\n\n      Reprinted, with Additions, from \"The Contemporary Review.\"\n\n    _Comprising some Remarks on Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy_\n       _and on Mr. J.S. Mill's Examination of that Philosophy_\n\n                        BY H.L. MANSEL, B.D.\n\n       WAYNFLETE PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY\n                     IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD\n\n\n                     ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER\n                         LONDON AND NEW YORK\n                                 1866\n\n\n\n\n               MUIR AND PATERSON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe circumstance that the following remarks were originally published as\nan anonymous article in a Review, will best explain the style in which\nthey are written. Absence from England prevented me from becoming\nacquainted with Mr. Mill's _Examination of Sir William Hamilton's\nPhilosophy_ till some time after its publication; and when I was\nrequested to undertake the task of reviewing it, I was still ignorant of\nits contents. On proceeding to fulfil my engagement, I soon discovered,\nnot only that the character of the book was very different from what the\nauthor's reputation had led me to expect, but also that my task would be\none, not merely of criticism, but, in some degree, of self-defence. The\nremarks on myself, coming from a writer of Mr. Mill's ability and\nreputation, were such as I could not pass over without notice; while, at\nthe same time, I felt that my principal duty in this instance was the\ndefence of one who was no longer living to defend himself. Under these\ncircumstances, the best course appeared to be, to devote the greater\nportion of my article to an exposition and vindication of Sir W.\nHamilton's teaching; and, in the additional remarks which it was\nnecessary to make on the more personal part of the controversy, to speak\nof myself in the third person, as I should have spoken of any other\nwriter. The form thus adopted has been retained in the present\nrepublication, though the article now appears with the name of its\nauthor.\n\nMy original intention of writing a review of the entire book was\nnecessarily abandoned as soon as I became acquainted with its contents.\nTo have done justice to the whole subject, or to Mr. Mill's treatment of\nit, would have required a volume nearly as large as his own. I therefore\ndetermined to confine myself to the _Philosophy of the Conditioned_, both\nas the most original and important portion of Sir W. Hamilton's teaching,\nand as that which occupies the first place in Mr. Mill's _Examination_.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED.\n\n\nThe reader of Plato's _Republic_ will readily recall to mind that\nwonderful passage at the end of the sixth book, in which the philosopher,\nunder the image of geometrical lines, exhibits the various relations of\nthe intelligible to the sensible world; especially his lofty aspirations\nwith regard to \"that second segment of the intelligible world, which\nreason of itself grasps by the power of dialectic, employing hypotheses,\nnot as principles, but as veritable hypotheses, that is to say, as steps\nand starting-points, in order that it may ascend _as far as the\nunconditioned_ ([Greek: mechri tou anypothetou]), to the first principle\nof the universe, and having grasped this, may then lay hold of the\nprinciples next adjacent to it, and so go down to the end, using no\nsensible aids whatever, but employing abstract forms throughout, and\nterminating in forms.\"\n\nThis quotation is important for our present purpose in two ways. In the\nfirst place, it may serve, at the outset of our remarks, to propitiate\nthose plain-spoken English critics who look upon new terms in philosophy\nwith the same suspicion with which Jack Cade regarded \"a noun and a verb,\nand such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear,\" by\nshowing that the head and front of our offending, \"the Unconditioned,\" is\nno modern invention of Teutonic barbarism, but sanctioned even by the\nAttic elegance of a Plato. And in the second place, it contains almost a\nhistory in miniature of the highest speculations of philosophy, both in\nearlier and in later times, and points out, with a clearness and\nprecision the more valuable because uninfluenced by recent controversies,\nthe exact field on which the philosophies of the Conditioned and the\nUnconditioned come into collision, and the nature of the problem which\nthey both approach from opposite sides.\n\nWhat is the meaning of this problem, the solution of which Plato proposes\nas the highest aim of philosophy--\"to ascend to the unconditioned, and\nthence to deduce the universe of conditioned existence?\" The problem has\nassumed different forms at different times: at present we must content\nourselves with stating it in that in which it will most naturally suggest\nitself to a student of modern philosophy, and in which it has the most\ndirect bearing on the subject of the present article.\n\nAll consciousness must in the first instance present itself as a relation\nbetween two constituent parts, the person who is conscious, and the\nthing, whatever it may be, of which he is conscious. This contrast has\nbeen indicated, directly or indirectly, by various names--mind and\nmatter; person and thing; subject and object; or, lastly, in the\ndistinction, most convenient for philosophy, however uncouth in sound,\nbetween self and not self--the _ego_ and the _non-ego_. In order to be\nconscious at all, I must be conscious of something: consciousness thus\npresents itself as the product of two factors, _I_ and _something_. The\nproblem of the unconditioned is, briefly stated, to reduce these two\nfactors to one.\n\nFor it is manifest that, so long as they remain two, we have no\nunconditioned, but a pair of conditioned existences. If the _something_\nof which I am conscious is a separate reality, having qualities and modes\nof action of its own, and thereby determining, or contributing to\ndetermine, the form which my consciousness of it shall take, my\nconsciousness is thereby conditioned, or partly dependent on something\nbeyond itself. It is no matter, in this respect, whether the influence is\ndirect or indirect--whether, for instance, I see a material tree, or only\nthe mental image of a tree. If the nature of the thing in any degree\ndetermines the character of the image--if the visible form of a tree is\ndifferent from that of a house because the tree itself is different from\nthe house, my consciousness is, however remotely, influenced by something\ndifferent from itself, the _ego_ by the _non-ego_. And on the other hand,\nif I, who am conscious, am a real being, distinct from the things of\nwhich I am conscious--if the conscious mind has a constitution and laws\nof its own by which it acts, and if the mode of its consciousness is in\nany degree determined by those laws, the _non-ego_ is so far conditioned\nby the _ego_; the thing which I see is not seen absolutely and _per se_,\nbut in a form partly dependent upon the laws of my vision.\n\nThe first step towards the reduction of these two factors to one may\nobviously be made in three different ways. Either the _ego_ may be\nrepresented as a mode of the _non-ego_, or the _non-ego_ of the _ego_, or\nboth of a _tertium quid_, distinct from either. In other words: it may be\nmaintained, _first_, that matter is the only real existence; mind and all\nthe phenomena of consciousness being really the result solely of material\nlaws; the brain, for example, secreting thought as the liver secretes\nbile; and the distinct personal existence of which I am apparently\nconscious being only the result of some such secretion. This is\n_Materialism_, which has then to address itself to the further problem,\nto reduce the various phenomena of matter to some one absolutely first\nprinciple on which everything else depends. Or it may be maintained,\n_secondly_, that mind is the only real existence; the intercourse which\nwe apparently have with a material world being really the result solely\nof the laws of our mental constitution. This is _Idealism_, which again\nhas next to attempt to reduce the various phenomena to some one\nimmaterial principle. Or it may be maintained, _thirdly_, that real\nexistence is to be sought neither in mind as mind nor in matter as\nmatter; that both classes of phenomena are but qualities or modes of\noperation of something distinct from both, and on which both alike are\ndependent. Hence arises a third form of philosophy, which, for want of a\nbetter name, we will call _Indifferentism_, as being a system in which\nthe characteristic differences of mind and matter are supposed to\ndisappear, being merged in something higher than both.\n\nIn using the two former of these terms, we are not speaking of\nMaterialism and Idealism as they have always actually manifested\nthemselves, but only of the distinguishing principle of these systems\nwhen pushed to its extreme result. It is quite possible to be a\nmaterialist or an idealist with respect to the immediate phenomena of\nconsciousness, without attempting a philosophy of the Unconditioned at\nall. But it is also possible, and in itself natural, when such a\nphilosophy is attempted, to attempt it by means of the same method which\nhas approved itself in relation to subordinate inquiries; to make the\nrelation between the human mind and its objects the type and image of\nthat between the universe and its first principle. And such attempts have\nactually been made, both on the side of Materialism and on that of\nIdealism; and probably would be made oftener, did not counteracting\ncauses frequently hinder the logical development of speculative\nprinciples.\n\nIn modern times, and under Christian influences, these several systems\nare almost necessarily identified with inquiries concerning the existence\nand nature of God. The influence of Christianity has been indirectly\nfelt, even in speculations prosecuted in apparent independence of it; and\nthe admission of an absolute first principle of all things distinct from\nGod, or the acknowledgment of a God separate from or derived from the\nfirst principle of all things, is an absurdity which, since the\nprevalence of Christianity, has become almost impossible, even to\nantichristian systems of thought. In earlier times, indeed, this union of\nphilosophy with theology was by no means so imperative. A philosophy like\nthat of Greece, which inherited its speculations from a poetical\ntheogony, would see no difficulty in attributing to the god or gods of\nits religious belief a secondary and derived existence, dependent on some\nhigher and more original principle, and in separating that principle\nitself from all immediate connection with religion. It was possible to\nassume, with the Ionian, a material substance, or, with the Eleatic, an\nindifferent abstraction, as the first principle of things, without\nholding that principle to be God, or, as the only alternative, denying\nthe existence of a God; and thus, as Aristotle[A] has observed,\ntheologians endeavoured to evade the consequences of their abstract\nprinciples, by attributing to the chief good a later and derived\nexistence, as the poets supposed the supreme God to be of younger birth\nthan night and chaos and sea and sky. But to a Christian philosophy, or\nto a philosophy in any way influenced by Christianity, this method of\nevasion is no longer possible. If all conditioned existence is dependent\non some one first and unconditioned principle, either that principle must\nbe identified with God, or our philosophical speculations must fall into\nopen and avowed atheism.\n\n  [A]  _Metaph._, xiv. 4.\n\nBut at this point the philosophical inquiry comes in contact with another\nline of thought, suggested by a different class of the facts of\nconsciousness. As a religious and moral being, man is conscious of a\nrelation of a personal character, distinct from any suggested by the\nphenomena of the material world,--a relation to a supreme Personal Being,\nthe object of his religious worship, and the source and judge of his\nmoral obligations and conduct. To adopt the name of God in an abstract\nspeculation merely as a conventional denomination for the highest link in\nthe chain of thought, and to believe in Him for the practical purposes of\nworship and obedience, are two very different things; and for the latter,\nthough not for the former, the conception of God as a Person is\nindispensable. Were man a being of pure intellect, the problem of the\nUnconditioned would be divested of its chief difficulty; but he is also a\nbeing of religious and moral faculties, and these also have a claim to be\nsatisfied by any valid solution of the problem. Hence the question\nassumes another and a more complex form. How is the one absolute\nexistence, to which philosophy aspires, to be identified with the\npersonal God demanded by our religious feelings?\n\nShall we boldly assume that the problem is already solved, and that the\npersonal God is the very Unconditioned of which we were in search? This\nis to beg the question, not to answer it. Our conception of a personal\nbeing, derived as it is from the immediate consciousness of our own\npersonality, seems, on examination, to involve conditions incompatible\nwith the desired assumption. Personal agency, similar to our own, seems\nto point to something very different from an absolutely first link in a\nchain of phenomena. Our actions, if not determined, are at least\ninfluenced by motives; and the motive is a prior link in the chain, and a\ncondition of the action. Our actions, moreover, take place in time; and\ntime, as we conceive it, cannot be regarded as an absolute blank, but as\na condition in which phenomena take place as past, present, and future.\nEvery act taking place in time implies something antecedent to itself;\nand this something, be it what it may, hinders us from regarding the\nsubsequent act as absolute and unconditioned. Nay, even time itself,\napart from the phenomena which it implies, has the same character. If an\nact cannot take place except in time, time is the condition of its taking\nplace. To conceive the unconditioned, as the first link in a chain of\nconditioned consequences, it seems necessary that we should conceive\nsomething out of time, yet followed by time; standing at the beginning of\nall duration and succession, having no antecedent, but followed by a\nseries of consequents.\n\nPhilosophical theologians have been conscious of this difficulty, almost\nfrom the earliest date at which philosophy and Christian theology came in\ncontact with each other. From a number of testimonies of similar import,\nwe select one or two of the most striking. Of the Divine Nature, Gregory\nNyssen says: \"It is neither in place nor in time, but before these and\nabove these in an unspeakable manner, contemplated itself by itself,\nthrough faith alone; neither measured by ages, nor moving along with\ntimes.\"[B] \"In the changes of things,\" says Augustine, \"you will find a\npast and a future; in God you will find a present where past and future\ncannot be.\"[C] \"Eternity,\" says Aquinas, \"has no succession, but exists\nall together.\"[D] Among divines of the Church of England, we quote two\nnames only, but those of the highest:--\"The duration of eternity,\" says\nBishop Pearson, \"is completely indivisible and all at once; so that it is\never present, and excludes the other differences of time, past and\nfuture.\"[E] And Barrow enumerates among natural modes of being and\noperation far above our reach, \"God's eternity without succession,\"\ncoupling it with \"His prescience without necessitation of events.\"[F]\nBut it is needless to multiply authorities for a doctrine so familiar to\nevery student of theology.\n\n  [B]  _C. Eunom._, i., p. 98, Ed. Gretser.\n\n  [C]  _In Joann. Evang._, tract. xxxvii. 10.\n\n  [D]  _Summa_, pars. i., qu. x., art. 1.\n\n  [E]  _Minor Theol. Works_, vol. i., p. 105.\n\n  [F]  Sermon on the Unsearchableness of God's Judgments.\n\nThus, then, our two lines of thought have led us to conclusions which, at\nfirst sight, appear to be contradictory of each other. To be conceived as\nunconditioned, God must be conceived as exempt from action in time: to be\nconceived as a person, if His personality resembles ours, He must be\nconceived as acting in time. Can these two conclusions be reconciled with\neach other; and if not, which of them is to be abandoned? The true answer\nto this question is, we believe, to be found in a distinction which some\nrecent critics regard with very little favour,--the distinction between\nReason and Faith; between the power of _conceiving_ and that of\n_believing_. We cannot, in our present state of knowledge, reconcile\nthese two conclusions; yet we are not required to abandon either. We\ncannot conceive the manner in which the unconditioned and the personal\nare united in the Divine Nature; yet we may believe that, in some manner\nunknown to us, they are so united. To conceive the union of two\nattributes in one object of thought, I must be able to conceive them as\nunited in some particular manner: when this cannot be done, I may\nnevertheless believe _that_ the union is possible, though I am unable to\nconceive _how_ it is possible. The problem is thus represented as one of\nthose Divine mysteries, the character of which is clearly and well\ndescribed in the language of Leibnitz:--\"Il en est de meme des autres\nmysteres, ou les esprits moderes trouveront toujours une explication\nsuffisante pour croire, et jamais autant qu'il en faut pour comprendre.\nIl nous suffit d'un certain _ce que c'est_ ([Greek: ti esti]) mais le\n_comment_ ([Greek: pos]) nous passe, et ne nous est point\nnecessaire.\"[G]\n\n  [G]  _Theodicee, Discours de la Conformite de la Foi avec\n       la Raison, Sec. 56._ Leibnitz, it will be observed, uses\n       the expression _pour comprendre_, for which, in the\n       preceding remarks, we have substituted _to conceive_.\n       The change has been made intentionally, on account of an\n       ambiguity in the former word. Sometimes it is used, as\n       Leibnitz here uses it, to denote an apprehension of the\n       manner in which certain attributes can coexist in an\n       object. But sometimes (to say nothing of other senses)\n       it is used to signify a complete knowledge of an object\n       in all its properties and their consequences, such as it\n       may be questioned whether we have of any object\n       whatever. This ambiguity, which has been the source of\n       much confusion and much captious criticism, is well\n       pointed out by Norris in his _Reason and Faith_ (written\n       in reply to Toland), p. 118, Ed. 1697: \"When we say that\n       _above reason_ is when we do not comprehend or perceive\n       the truth of a thing, this must not be meant of not\n       comprehending the truth in its whole latitude and\n       extent, so that as many truths should be said to be\n       above reason as we cannot thus thoroughly comprehend and\n       pursue throughout all their consequences and relations\n       to other truths (for then almost everything would be\n       above reason), but only of not comprehending the union\n       or connection of those immediate ideas of which the\n       proposition supposed to be above reason consists.\"\n       _Comprehension_, as thus explained, answers exactly to\n       the ordinary logical use of the term _conception_, to\n       denote the combination of two or more attributes in an\n       unity of representation. In the same sense, M. Peisse,\n       in the preface to his translation of Hamilton's\n       _Fragments_, p. 98, says,--\"Comprendre, c'est voir un\n       terme en rapport avec un autre; c'est voir comme un ce\n       qui est donne comme multiple.\" This is exactly the\n       sense in which Hamilton himself uses the word\n       _conception_. (See _Reid's Works_, p. 377.)\n\nBut this distinction involves a further consequence. If the mysteries of\nthe Divine Nature are not apprehended by reason as existing in a\nparticular manner (in which case they would be mysteries no longer), but\nare accepted by faith as existing in some manner unknown to us, it\nfollows that we do not know God as He is in His absolute nature, but only\nas He is imperfectly represented by those qualities in His creatures\nwhich are analogous to, but not identical with, His own. If, for example,\nwe had a knowledge of the Divine Personality as it is in itself, we\nshould know it as existing in a certain manner compatible with\nunconditioned action; and this knowledge of the manner would at once\ntransform our conviction from an act of faith to a conception of reason.\nIf, on the other hand, the only personality of which we have a positive\nknowledge is our own, and if our own personality can only be conceived as\nconditioned in time, it follows that the Divine Personality, in so far as\nit is exempt from conditions, does not resemble the only personality\nwhich we directly know, and is not adequately represented by it. This\nnecessitates a confession, which, like the distinction which gives rise\nto it, has been vehemently condemned by modern critics, but which has\nbeen concurred in with singular unanimity by earlier divines of various\nages and countries,--the confession that the knowledge which man in this\nlife can have of God is not a knowledge of the Divine Nature as it is in\nitself, but only of that nature as imperfectly represented through\nanalogous qualities in the creature. Were it not that this doctrine has\nbeen frequently denounced of late as an heretical novelty, we should\nhardly have thought it necessary to cite authorities in proof of its\nantiquity and catholicity. As it is, we will venture to produce a few\nonly out of many, selecting not always the most important, but those\nwhich can be best exhibited _verbatim_ in a short extract.\n\n  CHRYSOSTOM.--_De Incompr. Dei Natura_, Hom. i. 3: \"_That_ God is\n  everywhere, I know; and _that_ He is wholly everywhere, I know; but\n  the _how_, I know not: _that_ He is without beginning, ungenerated\n  and eternal, I know; but the _how_, I know not.\"\n\n  BASIL.--Ep. ccxxxiv.: \"That God is, I know; but what is His essence\n  I hold to be above reason. How then am I saved? By faith; and faith\n  is competent to know that God is, not what He is.\"\n\n  GREGORY NAZIANZEN.--Orat. xxxiv.: \"A theologian among the Greeks\n  [Plato] has said in his philosophy, that to conceive God is\n  difficult, to express Him is impossible. ... But I say that it is\n  impossible to express Him, and more impossible to conceive Him.\"\n  [Compare Patrick, _Works_, vol. iii., p. 39.]\n\n  CYRIL OF JERUSALEM.--Catech. vi. 2: \"We declare not what God is,\n  but candidly confess that we know not accurately concerning Him.\n  For in those things which concern God, it is great knowledge to\n  confess our ignorance.\"\n\n  AUGUSTINE.--Enarr. in Psalm, lxxxv. 8: \"God is ineffable; we more\n  easily say what He is not than what He is.\" Serm, cccxli.: \"I call\n  God just, because in human words I find nothing better; for He is\n  beyond justice.... What then is worthily said of God? Some one,\n  perhaps, may reply and say, _that He is just._ But another, with\n  better understanding, may say that even this word is surpassed by\n  His excellence, and that even this is said of Him unworthily,\n  though it be said fittingly according to human capacity.\"\n\n  CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA.--_In Joann. Evang_., 1. ii., c. 5: \"For those\n  things which are spoken concerning it [the Divine Nature] are not\n  spoken as they are in very truth, but as the tongue of man can\n  interpret, and as man can hear; for he who sees in an enigma also\n  speaks in an enigma.\"\n\n  DAMASCENUS.--_De Fide Orthod_., i. 4: \"That God is, is manifest;\n  but what He is in His essence and nature is utterly\n  incomprehensible and unknown.\"\n\n  AQUINAS.--_Summa_, pars. i., qu. xiii., art. 1: \"We cannot so name\n  God that the name which denotes Him shall express the Divine\n  Essence as it is, in the same way as the name _man_ expresses in\n  its signification the essence of man as it is.\" _Ibid._, art. 5:\n  \"When the name _wise_ is said of a man, it in a manner describes\n  and comprehends the thing signified: not so, however, when it is\n  said of God; but it leaves the thing signified as uncomprehended\n  and exceeding the signification of the name. Whence it is evident\n  that this name _wise_ is not said in the same manner of God and of\n  man. The same is the case with other names; whence no name can be\n  predicated univocally of God and of creatures; yet they are not\n  predicated merely equivocally.... We must say, then, that such\n  names are said of God and of creatures according to analogy, that\n  is, proportion.\"\n\n  HOOKER.--_Ecc. Pol._, I., ii. 2.--\"Dangerous it were for the feeble\n  brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High; whom\n  although to know be life, and joy to make mention of His name, yet\n  our soundest knowledge is to know that we know Him not as indeed He\n  is, neither can know Him.\"\n\n  USHER.--_Body of Divinity_, p. 45, Ed. 1645: \"Neither is it [the\n  wisdom of God] communicated to any creature, neither can be; for it\n  is unconceivable, as the very essence of God Himself is\n  unconceivable, and unspeakable as it is.\"\n\n  LEIGHTON.--Theol. Lect. XXI., _Works_, vol. iv., p. 327, Ed. 1830:\n  \"Though in the schools they distinguish the Divine attributes or\n  excellences, and that by no means improperly, into communicable and\n  incommunicable; yet we ought so to guard this distinction, as\n  always to remember that those which are called communicable, when\n  applied to God, are not only to be understood in a manner\n  incommunicable and quite peculiar to Himself, but also, that in Him\n  they are in reality infinitely different [in the original, _aliud\n  omnino_, _immensum aliud_] from those virtues, or rather, in a\n  matter where the disparity of the subjects is so very great, those\n  shadows of virtues that go under the same name, either in men or\n  angels.\"\n\n  PEARSON.--_Minor Theol. Works_, vol. i., p. 13: \"God in Himself is\n  an absolute being, without any relation to creatures, for He was\n  from eternity without any creature, and could, had He willed, be to\n  eternity without creature. But God cannot naturally be known by us\n  otherwise than by relation to creatures, as, for example, under the\n  aspect of dominion, or of cause, or in some other relation.\"[H]\n\n  BEVERIDGE.--_On the Thirty-nine Articles_, p. 16, Ed. 1846: \"But\n  seeing the properties of God do not so much denote what God is, as\n  what we apprehend Him to be in Himself; when the properties of God\n  are predicated one of another, one thing in God is not predicated\n  of another, but our apprehensions of the same thing are predicated\n  one of another.\"\n\n  LESLIE.--_Method with the Deists_, p. 63, Ed. 1745: \"What we call\n  _faculties_ in the soul, we call _Persons_ in the Godhead; because\n  there are personal actions attributed to each of them.... And we\n  have no other word whereby to express it; we speak it after the\n  manner of men; nor could we understand if we heard any of those\n  unspeakable words which express the Divine Nature in its proper\n  essence; therefore we must make allowances, and great ones, when we\n  apply words of our nature to the Infinite and Eternal Being.\"\n  _Ibid._, p. 64: \"By the word _Person_, when applied to God (for\n  want of a proper word whereby to express it), we must mean\n  something infinitely different from personality among men.\"\n\n  [H]  Bishop Pearson's language is yet more explicit in\n       another passage of the same work, which we give in the\n       original Latin:--\"Non dantur pro hoc statu nomina quae\n       Deum significant quidditative. Patet; quia nomina sunt\n       conceptuum. Non autem dantur in hoc statu conceptus\n       quidditativi de Deo.\"--(P. 136.)\n\nThe system of theology represented by these extracts may, as we think, be\nfairly summed up as follows: We believe that God in His own nature is\nabsolute and unconditioned; but we can only positively conceive Him by\nmeans of relations and conditions suggested by created things. We believe\nthat His own nature is simple and uniform, admitting of no distinction\nbetween various attributes, nor between any attribute and its subject;\nbut we can conceive Him only by means of various attributes, distinct\nfrom the subject and from each other.[I] We believe that in verum, aut\nbonum esse, aut omnino ipsum esse. His own nature He is exempt from all\nrelations of time; but we can conceive Him only by means of ideas and\nterms which imply temporal relations, a past, a present, and a\nfuture.[J] Our thought, then, must not be taken as the measure and\nlimit of our belief: we think by means of relations and conditions\nderived from created things; we believe in an Absolute Being, in whose\nnature these conditions and relations, in some manner unknown to us,\ndisappear in a simple and indivisible unity.\n\n  [I]  This will be found most distinctly stated in the context\n       of the extract from Beveridge, and in the citations from\n       St. Augustine given in his notes; to which may be added\n       the following from _De Trinitate_, vi. 7:--\"Deus vero\n       multipliciter quidem dicitur magnus, bonus, sapiens,\n       beatus, verus, et quidquid aliud non indigne dici\n       videtur; sed eadem magnitudo ejus est quae sapientia,\n       non enim mole magnus est, sed virtute; et eadem bonitas\n       quae sapientia et magnitudo, et eadem veritas quae illa\n       omnia: et non est ibi aliud beatum esse et aliud magnum,\n       aut sapientem, aut verum, aut bonum esse, aut omnino\n       ipsum esse.\"\n\n  [J]  Compare the remarkable words of Bishop Beveridge,\n       _l.c._, \"And therefore, though I cannot apprehend His\n       mercy to Abel in the beginning of the world, and His\n       mercy to me now, but as two distinct expressions of His\n       mercy, yet as they are in God, they are but one and the\n       same act,--as they are in God, I say, who is not\n       measured by time, as our apprehensions of Him are, but\n       is Himself eternity; a centre without a circumference,\n       eternity without time.\"\n\nThe most important feature of this philosophical theology, and the one\nwhich exhibits most clearly the practical difference between reason and\nfaith, is that, in dealing with theoretical difficulties, it does not\nappeal to our knowledge, but to our ignorance: it does not profess to\noffer a definite solution; it only tells us that we might find one if we\nknew all. It does not profess, for example, to solve the apparent\ncontradiction between God's foreknowledge and man's free will; it does\nnot say, \"This is the way in which God foreknows, and in this way His\nforeknowledge is reconcileable with human freedom;\" it only says, \"The\ncontradiction is apparent, but need not be real. Freedom is incompatible\nwith God's foreknowledge, only on the supposition that God's\nforeknowledge is like man's: if we knew exactly how the one differs from\nthe other, we might be able to see that what is incompatible with the one\nis not so with the other. We cannot solve the difficulty, but we can\nbelieve that there is a solution.\"\n\nIt is this open acknowledgment of our ignorance of the highest things\nwhich makes this system of philosophy distasteful to many minds: it is\nthe absence of any similar acknowledgment which forms the attraction and\nthe seductiveness of Pantheism in one way, and of Positivism in another.\nThe pantheist is not troubled with the difficulty of reconciling the\nphilosophy of the absolute with belief in a personal God; for belief in a\npersonal God is no part of his creed. Like the Christian, he may profess\nto acknowledge a first principle, one, and simple, and indivisible, and\nunconditioned; but he has no need to give to this principle the name of\nGod, or to invest it with such attributes as are necessary to satisfy\nman's religious wants. His God (so far as he acknowledges one at all) is\nnot the first principle and cause of all things, but the aggregate of the\nwhole--an universal substance underlying the world of phenomena, or an\nuniversal process, carried on in and by the changes of things. Hence, as\nAristotle said of the Eleatics, that, by asserting all things to be one,\nthey annihilated causation, which is the production of one thing from\nanother, so it may be said of the various schools of Pantheism, that, by\nmaintaining all things to be God, they evade rather than solve the great\nproblem of philosophy, that of the relation between God and His\ncreatures. The positivist, on the other hand, escapes the difficulty by\nan opposite course. He declines all inquiry into reality and causation,\nand maintains that the only office of philosophy is to observe and\nregister the invariable relations of succession and similitude in\nphenomena. He does not necessarily deny the existence of God; but his\npersonal belief, be it what it may, is a matter of utter indifference to\nhis system. Religion and philosophy may perhaps go on side by side; but\ntheir provinces are wholly distinct, and therefore there is no need to\nattempt a reconciliation between them. God, as a first cause, lives like\nan Epicurean deity in undisturbed ease, apart from the world of\nphenomena, of which alone philosophy can take cognisance: philosophy, as\nthe science of phenomena, contents itself with observing the actual state\nof things, without troubling itself to inquire how that state of things\ncame into existence. Hence, neither Pantheism nor Positivism is troubled\nto explain the relation of the One to the Many; for the former\nacknowledges only the One, and the latter acknowledges only the Many.\n\nIt is between these two systems, both seductive from their apparent\nsimplicity, and both simple only by mutilation, that the Philosophy of\nthe Conditioned, of which Sir William Hamilton is the representative,\nendeavours to steer a middle course, at the risk of sharing the fate of\nmost mediators in a quarrel,--being repudiated and denounced by both\ncombatants, because it declares them to be both in the wrong. Against\nPantheism, which is the natural development of the principle of\nIndifferentism, it enters a solemn protest, by asserting that the\nAbsolute must be accepted in philosophy, not as a problem to be solved by\nreason, but as a reality to be believed in, though above reason; and that\nthe pseudo-absolute, which Pantheism professes to exhibit in a positive\nconception, is shown, by the very fact of its being so conceived, not to\nbe the true Absolute. Against Positivism, which is virtually Materialism,\nit protests no less strongly, maintaining that the philosophy which\nprofesses to explain the whole of nature by the aid of material laws\nalone, proceeds upon an assumption which does not merely dispense with\nGod as a scientific hypothesis, but logically involves consequences which\nlead to a denial of His very existence. Between both extremes, it holds\nan intermediate position, neither aspiring, with Pantheism, to solve the\nproblems of the Absolute, nor neglecting them, with Positivism, as\naltogether remote from the field of philosophical inquiry; but\nmaintaining that such problems must necessarily arise, and must\nnecessarily be taken into account in every adequate survey of human\nnature and human thought, and that philosophy, if it cannot solve them,\nis bound to show why they are insoluble.\n\nLet us hear Hamilton's own words in relation to both the systems which he\nopposes. Against Pantheism, and the Philosophy of the Unconditioned in\ngeneral, he says:--\n\n  \"The Conditioned is the mean between two extremes,--two\n  inconditionates, exclusive of each other, _neither of which can be\n  conceived as possible_,[K] but of which, on the principles of\n  contradiction and excluded middle, _one must be admitted as\n  necessary_. On this opinion, therefore, our faculties are shown to\n  be weak, but not deceitful. The mind is not represented as\n  conceiving two propositions, subversive of each other, as equally\n  possible; but only as unable to understand as possible either of\n  the two extremes; one of which, however, on the ground of their\n  mutual repugnance, it is compelled to recognise as true. We are\n  thus taught the salutary lesson, that the capacity of thought is\n  not to be constituted into the measure of existence; and are warned\n  from recognising the domain of our knowledge as necessarily\n  co-extensive with the horizon of our faith. And by a wonderful\n  revelation, we are thus, in the very consciousness of our inability\n  to conceive aught above the relative and finite, inspired with a\n  belief in the existence of something unconditioned beyond the\n  sphere of all comprehensible reality.\"--_Discussions_, p. 15.\n\n  [K]  It must be remembered that, to conceive a thing as\n       possible, we must conceive the manner in which it is\n       possible, but that we may believe in the fact without\n       being able to conceive the manner. Had Hamilton\n       distinctly expressed this, he might have avoided some\n       very groundless criticisms, with which he has been\n       assailed for maintaining a distinction between the\n       provinces of conception and belief.\n\nAgainst Materialism, and virtually against Positivism in general, he\nsays:--\n\n  \"If in man, intelligence be a free power,--in so far as its liberty\n  extends, intelligence must be independent of necessity and matter;\n  and a power independent of matter necessarily implies the existence\n  of an immaterial subject--that is, a spirit. If, then, the original\n  independence of intelligence on matter in the human\n  constitution--in other words, if the spirituality of mind in man be\n  supposed a datum of observation, in this datum is also given both\n  the condition and the proof of a God. For we have only to infer,\n  what analogy entitles us to do, that intelligence holds the same\n  relative supremacy in the universe which it holds in us, and the\n  first positive condition of a Deity is established, in the\n  establishment of the absolute priority of a free creative\n  intelligence. On the other hand, let us suppose the result of our\n  study of man to be, that intelligence is only a product of matter,\n  only a reflex of organization, such a doctrine would not only not\n  afford no basis on which to rest any argument for a God, but, on\n  the contrary, would positively warrant the atheist in denying His\n  existence. For if, as the materialist maintains, the only\n  intelligence of which we have any experience be a consequent of\n  matter,--on this hypothesis, he not only cannot assume this order\n  to be reversed in the relations of an intelligence beyond his\n  observation, but, if he argue logically, he must positively\n  conclude that, as in man, so in the universe, the phenomena of\n  intelligence or design are only in their last analysis the products\n  of a brute necessity. Psychological Materialism, if carried out\n  fully and fairly to its conclusions, thus inevitably results in\n  theological Atheism; as it has been well expressed by Dr. Henry\n  More, _Nullus in microcosmo spiritus, nullus in macrocosmo Deus_. I\n  do not, of course, mean to assert that all materialists deny or\n  actually disbelieve a God. For, in very many cases, this would be\n  at once an unmerited compliment to their reasoning, and an\n  unmerited reproach to their faith.\"--_Lectures_, vol. i, p.\n  31.[L]\n\n  [L]  This part of Hamilton's teaching is altogether\n       repudiated by a recent writer, who, strangely enough,\n       professes to be his disciple, while rejecting all that\n       is really characteristic of his philosophy. Mr. Herbert\n       Spencer, in his work on _First Principles_, endeavours\n       to press Sir W. Hamilton into the service of Pantheism\n       and Positivism together, by adopting the negative\n       portion only of his philosophy--in which, in common with\n       many other writers, he declares the absolute to be\n       inconceivable by the mere intellect,--and rejecting the\n       positive portions, in which he most emphatically\n       maintains that the belief in a personal God is\n       imperatively demanded by the facts of our moral and\n       emotional consciousness. Mr. Spencer regards religion as\n       nothing more than a consciousness of natural facts as\n       being in their ultimate genesis unaccountable--a theory\n       which is simply a combination of the positivist\n       doctrine, that we know only the relations of phenomena,\n       with the pantheist assumption of the name of God to\n       denote the substance or power which lies beyond\n       phenomena. No theory can be more opposed to the\n       philosophy of the conditioned than this. Sir W.\n       Hamilton's fundamental principle is, that consciousness\n       must be accepted entire, and that the moral and\n       religious feelings, which are the primary source of our\n       belief in a personal God, are in no way invalidated by\n       the merely negative inferences which have deluded men\n       into the assumption of an impersonal absolute; the\n       latter not being legitimate deductions from\n       consciousness rightly interpreted. Mr. Spencer, on the\n       other hand, takes these negative inferences as the only\n       basis of religion, and abandons Hamilton's great\n       principle of the distinction between knowledge and\n       belief, by quietly dropping out of his system the facts\n       of consciousness which make such a distinction\n       necessary. His whole system is, in fact, a pertinent\n       illustration of Hamilton's remark, that \"the phenomena\n       of matter\" [and of mind, he might add, treated by\n       materialistic methods], \"taken by themselves (you will\n       observe the qualification, taken by themselves), so far\n       from warranting any inference to the existence of a God,\n       would, on the contrary, ground even an argument to his\n       negation.\" Mr. Spencer, like Mr. Mill, denies the\n       freedom of the will; and this, according to Hamilton,\n       leads by logical consequence to Atheism.\n\nIn the few places in which Hamilton speaks directly as a theologian, his\nlanguage is in agreement with the general voice of Catholic theology down\nto the end of the seventeenth century, some specimens of which have been\ngiven on a previous page. Thus he says (_Discussions_, p. 15): \"True,\ntherefore, are the declarations of a pious philosophy,--'A God understood\nwould be no God at all;' 'To think that God is, as we can think Him to\nbe, is blasphemy.' The Divinity, in a certain sense, is revealed; in a\ncertain sense is concealed: He is at once known and unknown. But the last\nand highest consecration of all true religion must be an altar [Greek:\nAgnosto Theo]--'_To the unknown and unknowable God._'\" A little later\n(p. 20) he says: \"We should not recoil to the opposite extreme; and\nthough man be not identical with the Deity, still is he 'created in the\nimage of God.' It is, indeed, only through an analogy of the human with\nthe Divine nature, that we are percipient and recipient of Divinity.\" In\nthe first of these passages we have an echo of the language of Basil, the\ntwo Cyrils, and John Damascene, and of our own Hooker and Usher; while in\nthe second we find the counter truth, intimated by Augustine and other\nFathers,[M] and clearly stated by Aquinas, and which in the last\ncentury was elaborately expounded in the _Divine Analogy_ of Bishop\nBrowne,--namely, that though we know not God in His own nature, yet are\nwe not wholly ignorant of Him, but may attain to an imperfect knowledge\nof Him through the analogy between human things and Divine.\n\n  [M]  As _e.g._, by Tertullian (_Adv. Marc._, l. ii., c. 16):\n       \"Et haec ergo imago censenda est Dei in homine, quod\n       eosdem motos et sensus habeat humanus animus quos et\n       Deus, licet non tales quales Deus: pro substantia enim,\n       et status eorum et exitus distant.\" And by Gregory\n       Nazianzen, Orat. xxxvii.: \"[Greek: Onomasamen gar hos\n       hemin ephikton ek ton hemeteron ta tou Theou]\" And\n       by Hilary, _De Trin._, i. 19: \"Comparatio enim\n       terrenorum ad Deum nulla est; sed infirmitas nostrae\n       intelligentiae cogit species quasdam ex inferioribus,\n       tanquam superiorum indices quaerere; ut rerum\n       familiarium consuetudine admovente, ex sensus nostri\n       conscientia ad insoliti sensus opinionem educeremur.\"\n\nAs regards theological results, therefore, there is nothing novel or\npeculiar in Hamilton's teaching; nor was he one who would have regarded\nnovelty in theology as a recommendation. The peculiarity of his system,\nby which his reputation as a philosopher must ultimately stand or fall,\nis the manner in which he endeavoured to connect these theological\nconclusions with psychological principles; and thus to vindicate on\nphilosophical grounds the position which Catholic divines had been\ncompelled to take in the interests of dogmatic truth. That the absolute\nnature of God, as a supertemporal and yet personal Being, must be\nbelieved in as a fact, though inaccessible to reason as regards the\nmanner of its possibility, is a position admitted, almost without\nexception, by divines who acknowledge the mystery of a personal\nAbsolute--still more by those who acknowledge the yet deeper mystery of a\nTrinity in Unity. \"We believe and know,\" says Bishop Sanderson of the\nmysteries of the Christian faith, \"and that with fulness of assurance,\nthat all these things are so as they are revealed in the Holy Scriptures,\nbecause the mouth of God, who is Truth itself, and cannot lie, hath\nspoken them; and our own reason upon this ground teacheth us to submit\nourselves and it to _the obedience of faith_, for the [Greek: to hoti],\nthat so it is. But then, for the [Greek: to pos], Nicodemus his\nquestion, _How can these things be?_ it is no more possible for our weak\nunderstandings to comprehend that, than it is for the eyes of bats or\nowls to look steadfastly upon the body of the sun, when he shineth forth\nin his greatest strength.\"[N] This distinction Hamilton endeavoured to\nextend from the domain of Christian theology to that of philosophical\nspeculation in general; to show that the unconditioned, as it is\nsuggested in philosophy, no less than as it connects itself with revealed\nreligion, is an object of belief, not of positive conception; and,\nconsequently, that men cannot escape from mystery by rejecting\nrevelation. \"Above all,\" he says, \"I am confirmed in my belief by the\nharmony between the doctrines of this philosophy, and those of revealed\ntruth.... For this philosophy is professedly a scientific demonstration\nof the impossibility of that 'wisdom in high matters' which the Apostle\nprohibits us even to attempt; and it proposes, from the limitation of the\nhuman powers, from our impotence to comprehend what, however, we must\nadmit, to show articulately why the 'secret things of God,' cannot but be\nto man 'past finding out.'\"[O] Faith in the inconceivable must thus\nbecome the ultimate refuge, even of the pantheist and the atheist, no\nless than of the Christian; the difference being, that while the last\ntakes his stand on a faith which is in agreement alike with the authority\nof Scripture and the needs of human nature, the two former are driven to\none which is equally opposed to both, as well as to the pretensions of\ntheir own philosophy.\n\n  [N]  _Works_, vol. i., p, 233.\n\n  [O]  _Discussions_, p. 625.\n\nDeny the Trinity; deny the Personality of God: there yet remains that\nwhich no man can deny as the law of his own consciousness--_Time_.\nConditioned existence is existence in time: to attain to a philosophy of\nthe unconditioned, we must rise to the conception of existence out of\ntime. The attempt may be made in two ways, and in two only. Either we\nmay endeavour to conceive an absolutely first moment of time, beyond\nwhich is an existence having no duration and no succession; or we may\nendeavour to conceive time as an unlimited duration, containing an\ninfinite series of successive antecedents and consequents, each\nconditioned in itself, but forming altogether an unconditioned whole. In\nother words, we may endeavour, with the Eleatics, to conceive pure\nexistence apart and distinct from all phenomenal change; or we may\nendeavour, with Heraclitus, to conceive the universe as a system of\nincessant changes, immutable only in the law of its own mutability; for\nthese two systems may be regarded as the type of all subsequent\nattempts. Both, however, alike aim at an object which is beyond positive\nconception, and which can be accepted only as something to be believed in\nspite of its inconceivability. To conceive an existence beyond the first\nmoment of time, and to connect that existence as cause with the\nsubsequent temporal succession of effects, we must conceive time itself\nas non-existent and then commencing to exist. But when we make the\neffort to conceive time as non-existent, we find it impossible to do\nso. Time, as the universal condition of human consciousness, clings round\nthe very conception which strives to destroy it, clings round the\nlanguage in which we speak of an existence _before_ time. Nor are we more\nsuccessful when we attempt to conceive an infinite regress of time, and an\ninfinite series of dependent existences in time. To say nothing of the\ndirect contradiction involved in the notion of an unconditioned\n_whole_,--a something completed,--composed of infinite parts--of parts\nnever completed,--even if we abandon the Whole, and with it the\nUnconditioned, and attempt merely to conceive an infinite succession\nof conditioned existences--conditioned, absurdly enough, by nothing\nbeyond themselves,--we find, that in order to do so, we must add moment to\nmoment for ever--a process which would require an eternity for its\naccomplishment.[P] Moreover, the chain of dependent existences in this\ninfinite succession is not, like a mathematical series, composed of\nabstract and homogeneous units; it is made up of divers phenomena, of a\nregressive line of causes, each distinct from the other. Wherever,\ntherefore, I stop in my addition, I do not positively conceive the terms\nwhich lie beyond. I apprehend them only as a series of unknown\n_somethings_, of which I may believe _that_ they are, but am unable to\nsay _what_ they are.\n\n  [P]  See _Discussions_, p. 29. Of course by this is not meant\n       that no duration can be conceived except in a duration\n       equally long--that a thousand years, _e.g._, can only be\n       conceived in a thousand years. A thousand years may be\n       conceived as one unit: infinity cannot; for an unit is\n       something complete, and therefore limited. What is meant\n       is, that any period of time, however long, is conceived\n       as capable of further increase, and therefore as not\n       infinite. An infinite duration can have no time before\n       or after it; and thus cannot resemble any portion of\n       finite time, however great. When we dream of conceiving\n       an infinite regress of time, says Sir W. Hamilton, \"we\n       only deceive ourselves by substituting the _indefinite_\n       for the infinite, than which no two notions can be more\n       opposed.\" This caution has not been attended to by some\n       later critics. Thus, Dr. Whewell (_Philosophy of\n       Discovery_, p. 324) says: \"The definition of an infinite\n       number is not that it contains all possible unities; but\n       this--that the progress of numeration, being begun\n       according to a certain law, goes on without limit.\" This\n       is precisely Descartes' definition, not of the\n       _infinite_, but of the _indefinite_. _Principia_, i. 26:\n       \"Nos autem illa omnia, in quibus sub aliqua\n       consideratione nullum finem poterimus invenire, non\n       quidem affirmabimus esse infinita, sed ut indefinita\n       spectabimus.\" An indefinite time is that which is\n       capable of perpetual addition: an infinite time is one\n       so great as to admit of no addition. Surely \"no two\n       notions can be more opposed.\"\n\nThe cardinal point, then, of Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy, expressly\nannounced as such by himself, is the absolute necessity, under any system\nof philosophy whatever, of acknowledging the existence of a sphere of\nbelief beyond the limits of the sphere of thought. \"The main scope of my\nspeculation,\"[Q] he says, \"is to show articulately that we _must\nbelieve_, as actual, much that we are unable (positively) _to conceive_\nas even possible.\" It is, of course, beyond the range of such a\nspeculation, by itself, to enter on an examination of the positive\nevidences in support of one form of belief rather than another. So far as\nit aims only at exhibiting an universal law of the human mind, it is of\ncourse compatible with all special forms of belief which do not\ncontradict that law; and none, whatever their pretensions, can really\ncontradict it. Hence the service which such a philosophy can render to\nthe Christian religion must necessarily, from the nature of the case, be\nof an indirect and negative character. It prepares the way for a fair\nexamination of the proper evidences of Christianity, by showing that\nthere is no ground for any _a priori_ prejudice against revelation, as\nappealing, for the acceptance of its highest truths, to faith rather than\nto reason; for that this appeal is common to all religions and to all\nphilosophies, and cannot therefore be urged against one more than\nanother. So far as certain difficulties are inherent in the constitution\nof the human mind itself, they must necessarily occupy the same position\nwith respect to all religions alike. To exhibit the nature of these\ndifficulties is a service to true religion; but it is the service of the\npioneer, not of the builder; it does not prove the religion to be true;\nit only clears the ground for the production of the special evidences.\n\n  [Q]  Letter to Mr. Calderwood. See _Lectures_, vol. ii, p.\n       534.\n\nWhere those evidences are to be found, Sir W. Hamilton has not failed to\ntell us. If mere intellectual speculations on the nature and origin of\nthe material universe form a common ground in which the theist, the\npantheist, and even the atheist, may alike expatiate, the moral and\nreligious feelings of man--those facts of consciousness which have their\ndirect source in the sense of personality and free will--plead with\noverwhelming evidence in behalf of a personal God, and of man's relation\nto Him, as a person to a person. We have seen, in a previous quotation,\nHamilton's emphatic declaration that \"psychological materialism, if\ncarried out fully and fairly to its conclusions, inevitably results in\ntheological atheism.\" In the same spirit he tells us that \"it is only as\nman is a free intelligence, a moral power, that he is created after the\nimage of God;\"[R] that \"with the proof of the moral nature of man,\nstands or falls the proof of the existence of a Deity;\" that \"the\npossibility of morality depends on the possibility of liberty;\" that \"if\nman be not a free agent, he is not the author of his actions, and has\ntherefore no responsibility, no moral personality at all;\"[S] and,\nfinally, \"that he who disbelieves the moral agency of man, must, in\nconsistency with that opinion, disbelieve Christianity.\"[T] We have\nthus, in the positive and negative sides of this philosophy, both a\nreasonable ground of belief and a warning against presumption. By our\nimmediate consciousness of a moral and personal nature, we are led to the\nbelief in a moral and personal God: by our ignorance of the\nunconditioned, we are led to the further belief, that behind that moral\nand personal manifestation of God there lies concealed a mystery--the\nmystery of the Absolute and the Infinite; that our intellectual and moral\nqualities, though indicating the nearest approach to the Divine\nPerfections which we are capable of conceiving, yet indicate them as\nanalogous, not as identical; that we may naturally expect to find points\nwhere this analogy will fail us, where the function of the Infinite Moral\nGovernor will be distinct from that of the finite moral servant; and\nwhere, consequently, we shall be liable to error in judging by human\nrules of the ways of God, whether manifested in nature or in revelation.\nSuch is the true lesson to be learnt from a philosophy which tells us of\na God who is \"in a certain sense revealed, in a certain sense\nconcealed--at once known and unknown.\"\n\n  [R]  _Lectures_, vol. i., p. 30.\n\n  [S]  _Lectures_, vol. i, p. 33.\n\n  [T]  _Ibid._, p. 42.\n\nIt is not surprising that this philosophy, when compared with that of a\ncritic like Mr. Mill, should stand out in clear and sharp antagonism. Mr.\nMill is one of the most distinguished representatives of that school of\nMaterialism which Sir W. Hamilton denounces as virtual Atheism. We do not\nmean that he consciously adopts the grosser tenets of the materialists.\nWe are not aware that he has ever positively denied the existence of a\nsoul distinct from the body, or maintained that the brain secretes\nthought as the liver secretes bile. But he is the advocate of a\nphilosophical method which makes the belief in the existence of an\nimmaterial principle superfluous and incongruous; he not only\nacknowledges no such distinction between the phenomena of mind and those\nof matter as to require the hypothesis of a free intelligence to account\nfor it; he not only regards the ascertained laws of coexistence and\nsuccession in material phenomena as the type and rule according to which\nall phenomena whatever--those of internal consciousness no less than of\nexternal observation--are to be tested; but he even expressly denies the\nexistence of that free will which Sir W. Hamilton regards as the\nindispensable condition of all morality and all religion.[U] Thus,\ninstead of recognising in the facts of intelligence \"an order of\nexistence diametrically in contrast to that displayed to us in the facts\nof the material universe,\"[V] he regards both classes of facts as of\nthe same kind, and explicable by the same laws; he abolishes the primary\ncontrast of consciousness between the _ego_ and the _non-ego_--the person\nand the thing; he reduces man to a thing, instead of a person,--to one\namong the many phenomena of the universe, determined by the same laws of\ninvariable antecedence and consequence, included under the same formulae\nof empirical generalization. He thus makes man the slave, and not the\nmaster of nature; passively carried along in the current of successive\nphenomena; unable, by any act of free will, to arrest a single wave in\nits course, or to divert it from its ordained direction.\n\n  [U]  That this is the real battle-ground between the two\n       philosophers is virtually admitted by Mr. Mill himself\n       at the end of his criticism. He says:--\"The whole\n       philosophy of Sir W. Hamilton seems to have had its\n       character determined by the requirements of the doctrine\n       of Free-will; and to that doctrine he clung, because he\n       had persuaded himself that it afforded the only premises\n       from which human reason could deduce the doctrines of\n       natural religion. I believe that in this persuasion he\n       was thoroughly his own dupe, and that his speculations\n       have weakened the philosophical foundation of religion\n       fully as much as they have confirmed it.\"--P. 549. Mr.\n       Mill's whole philosophy, on the other hand, is\n       determined by the requirements of the doctrine of\n       Necessity; and to that doctrine he intrepidly adheres,\n       in utter defiance of consciousness, and sometimes of his\n       own consistency. Which of the two philosophers is really\n       \"his own dupe,\" Mr. Mill in believing that morality and\n       religion can exist without free will--that a necessary\n       agent can be responsible for his acts--or Sir W.\n       Hamilton in maintaining the contrary, is a question\n       which the former has by no means satisfactorily settled\n       in his own favour.\n\n  [V]  Hamilton, _Lectures_, vol. i, p. 29.\n\nThis diametrical antagonism between the two philosophers is not limited\nto their first principles, but extends, as might naturally be expected,\nto every subordinate science of which the immediate object is mental, and\nnot material. Logic, instead of being, as Sir W. Hamilton regards it, an\n_a priori_ science of the necessary laws of thought, is with Mr. Mill a\nscience of observation, investigating those operations of the\nunderstanding which are subservient to the estimation of evidence.[W]\nThe axioms of Mathematics, which the former philosopher regards, with\nKant, as necessary thoughts, based on the _a priori_ intuitions of space\nand time, the latter[X] declares to be \"experimental truths;\ngeneralizations from observation.\" Psychology, which with Hamilton is\nespecially the philosophy of man as a free and personal agent, is with\nMill the science of \"the uniformities of succession; the laws, whether\nultimate or derivative, according to which one mental state succeeds\nanother.\"[Y] And finally, in the place of Ethics, as the science of the\n_a priori_ laws of man's moral obligations, we are presented, in Mr.\nMill's system, with Ethology, the \"science which determines the kind of\ncharacter produced, in conformity to the general laws of mind, by any set\nof circumstances, physical and moral.\"[Z]\n\n  [W]  Mill's _Logic_. Introduction, Sec. 7.\n\n  [X]  _Ibid._, book ii. 5, Sec. 4.\n\n  [Y]  Mill's _Logic_, book vi. 4, Sec. 3.\n\n  [Z]  _Ibid._, book vi. 5, Sec. 4.\n\nThe contrast between the two philosophers being thus thoroughgoing, it\nwas natural to expect beforehand that an _Examination of Sir William\nHamilton's Philosophy_, by Mr. Mill, would contain a sharp and vigorous\nassault on the principal doctrines of that philosophy. And this\nexpectation has been amply fulfilled. But there was also reason to\nexpect, from the ability and critical power displayed in Mr. Mill's\nprevious writings, that his assault, whether successful or not in\noverthrowing his enemy, would at least be guided by a clear knowledge of\nthat enemy's position and purposes; that his dissent would be accompanied\nby an intelligent apprehension, and an accurate statement, of the\ndoctrines dissented from. In this expectation, we regret to say, we have\nbeen disappointed. Not only is Mr. Mill's attack on Hamilton's\nphilosophy, with the exception of some minor details, unsuccessful; but\nwe are compelled to add, that with regard to the three fundamental\ndoctrines of that philosophy--the Relativity of Knowledge, the\nIncognisability of the Absolute and Infinite, and the distinction between\nReason and Faith--Mr. Mill has, throughout his criticism, altogether\nmissed the meaning of the theories he is attempting to assail.\n\nThis is a serious charge to bring against a writer of such eminence as\nMr. Mill, and one which should not be advanced without ample proof.\nFirst, then, of the Relativity of Knowledge.\n\nThe assertion that all our knowledge is relative,--in other words, that\nwe know things only under such conditions as the laws of our cognitive\nfaculties impose upon us,--is a statement which looks at first sight like\na truism, but which really contains an answer to a very important\nquestion,--Have we reason to believe that the laws of our cognitive\nfaculties impose any conditions at all?--that the mind in any way reacts\non the objects affecting it, so as to produce a result different from\nthat which would be produced were it merely a passive recipient? \"The\nmind of man,\" says Bacon, \"is far from the nature of a clear and equal\nglass, wherein the beams of things shall reflect according to their true\nincidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of\nsuperstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced.\" Can what\nBacon says of the fallacies of the mind be also said of its proper\ncognitions? Does the mind, by its own action, in any way distort the\nappearance of the things presented to it; and if so, how far does the\ndistortion extend, and in what manner is it to be rectified? To trace the\ncourse of this inquiry, from the day when Plato compared the objects\nperceived by the senses to the shadows thrown by fire on the wall of a\ncave, to the day when Kant declared that we know only phenomena, not\nthings in themselves, would be to write the history of philosophy. We can\nonly at present call attention to one movement in that history, which,\nwas, in effect, a revolution in philosophy. The older philosophers in\ngeneral distinguished between the senses and the intellect, regarding the\nformer as deceptive and concerned with phenomena alone, the latter as\ntrustworthy and conversant with the realities of things. Hence arose the\ndistinction between the sensible and the intelligible world--between\nthings as perceived by sense and things as apprehended by\nintellect--between Phenomenology and Ontology. Kant rejected this\ndistinction, holding that the intellect, as well as the sense, imposes\nits own forms on the things presented to it, and is therefore cognisant\nonly of phenomena, not of things in themselves. The logical result of\nthis position would be the abolition of ontology as a science of things\nin themselves, and, _a fortiori_, of that highest branch of ontology\nwhich aims at a knowledge of the Absolute[AA] [Greek: kat' exochen],\nof the unconditioned first principle of all things. If the mind, in every\nact of thought, imposes its own forms on its objects, to think is to\ncondition, and the unconditioned is the unthinkable. Such was the logical\nresult of Kant's principles, but not the actual result. For Kant, by\ndistinguishing between the Understanding and the Reason, and giving to\nthe latter an indirect yet positive cognition of the Unconditioned as a\nregulative principle of thought, prepared the way for the systems of\nSchelling and Hegel, in which this indirect cognition is converted into a\ndirect one, by investing the reason, thus distinguished as the special\nfaculty of the unconditioned, with a power of intuition emancipated from\nthe conditions of space and time, and even of subject and object, or a\npower of thought emancipated from the laws of identity and\ncontradiction.\n\n [AA]  The term _absolute_, in the sense of _free from\n       relation_, may be used in two applications;--1st, To\n       denote the nature of a thing as it is in itself, as\n       distinguished from its appearance to us. Here it is used\n       only in a subordinate sense, as meaning out of relation\n       to human knowledge. 2ndly, To denote the nature of a\n       thing as independent of all other things, as having no\n       relation to any other thing as the condition of its\n       existence. Here it is used in its highest sense, as\n       meaning out of relation to anything else.\n\nThe theory of Hamilton is a modification of that of Kant, intended to\nobviate these consequences, and to relieve the Kantian doctrine itself\nfrom the inconsistency which gave rise to them. So long as the reason is\nregarded as a separate faculty from the understanding, and things in\nthemselves as ideas of the reason, so long the apparent contradictions,\nwhich encumber the attempt to conceive the unconditioned, must be\nregarded as inherent in the constitution of the reason itself, and as the\nresult of its legitimate exercise on its proper objects. This sceptical\nconclusion Hamilton endeavoured to avoid by rejecting the distinction\nbetween the understanding and the reason as separate faculties, regarding\nthe one as the legitimate and positive, the other as the illegitimate and\nnegative, exercise of one and the same faculty. He thus announces, in\nopposition to Kant, the fundamental doctrine of the Conditioned, as \"the\ndistinction between intelligence _within_ its legitimate sphere of\noperation, impeccable, and intelligence _beyond_ that sphere, affording\n(by abuse) the occasions of error.\"[AB] Hamilton, like Kant, maintained\nthat all our cognitions are compounded of two elements, one contributed\nby the object known, and the other by the mind knowing. But the very\nconception of a relation implies the existence of things to be related;\nand the knowledge of an object, as in relation to our mind, necessarily\nimplies its existence out of that relation. But as so existing, it is\nunknown: we believe _that_ it is; we know not _what_ it is. How far it\nresembles, or how far it does not resemble, the object apprehended by us,\nwe cannot say, for we have no means of comparing the two together.\n\n [AB]  _Discussions_, p. 633.\n\nInstead; therefore, of saying with Kant, that reason is subject to an\ninevitable delusion, by which, it mistakes the regulative principles of\nits own thoughts for the representations of real things, Hamilton would\nsay that the reason, while compelled to believe in the existence of these\nreal things, is not legitimately entitled to make any positive\nrepresentation of them as of such or such a nature; and that the\ncontradictions into which it falls when attempting to do so are due to an\nillegitimate attempt to transcend the proper boundaries of positive\nthought.\n\nThis theory does not, in itself, contain any statement of the mode in\nwhich we perceive the material world, whether directly by presentation,\nor indirectly by representative images; and perhaps it might, without any\ngreat violence, be adapted to more than one of the current hypotheses on\nthis point. But that to which it most easily adjusts itself is that\nmaintained by Hamilton himself under the name of _Natural Realism_. To\nspeak of perception as a _relation_ between mind and matter, naturally\nimplies the presence of both correlatives; though each may be modified by\nits contact with the other. The acid may act on the alkali, and the\nalkali on the acid, in forming the neutral salt; but each of the\ningredients is as truly present as the other, though each enters into the\ncompound in a modified form. And this is equally the case in perception,\neven if we suppose various media to intervene between the ultimate object\nand the perceiving mind,--such, _e.g._, as the rays of light and the\nsensitive organism in vision,--so long as these media are material, like\nthe ultimate object itself. Whether the object, properly so called, in\nvision, be the rays of light in contact with the organ, or the body\nemitting or reflecting those rays, is indifferent to the present\nquestion, so long as a material object of some kind or other is supposed\nto be perceived, and not merely an inmaterial representation of such an\nobject. To speak of our perceptions as mere modifications of mind\nproduced by an unknown cause, would be like maintaining that the acid is\nmodified by the influence of the alkali without entering into combination\nwith it. Such a view might perhaps be tolerated, in connection with the\ntheory of relativity, by an indulgent interpretation of language, but it\nis certainly not that which the language of the theory most naturally\nsuggests.\n\nAll this Mr. Mill entirely misapprehends. He quotes a passage from\nHamilton's Lectures, in which the above theory of Relativity is clearly\nstated as the mean between the extremes of Idealism and Materialism, and\nthen proceeds to comment as follows:--\n\n  \"The proposition, that our cognitions of objects are only in part\n  dependent on the objects themselves, and in part on elements\n  superadded by our organs or our minds, is not identical, nor _prima\n  facie_ absurd. It cannot, however, warrant the assertion that all\n  our knowledge, but only that the part so added, is relative. If our\n  author had gone as far as Kant, and had said that all which\n  constitutes knowledge is put in by the mind itself, he would have\n  really held, in one of its forms, the doctrine of the relativity of\n  our knowledge. But what he does say, far from implying that the\n  whole of our knowledge is relative, distinctly imports that all of\n  it which, is real and authentic is the reverse. If any part of what\n  we fancy that we perceive in the objects themselves, originates in\n  the perceiving organs or in the cognising mind, thus much is purely\n  relative; but since, by supposition, it does not all so originate,\n  the part that does not is as much absolute as if it were not liable\n  to be mixed up with, these delusive subjective impressions.\"--(P.\n  30.)\n\nMr. Mill, therefore, supposes that _wholly relative_ must mean _wholly\nmental_; in other words, that to say that a thing is wholly due to a\nrelation between mind and matter is equivalent to saying that it is\nwholly due to mind alone. On the contrary, we maintain that Sir W.\nHamilton's language is far more accurate than Mr. Mill's, and that the\nabove theory can with perfect correctness be described as one of _total\nrelativity_; and this from two points of view. First, as opposed to the\ntheory of partial relativity generally held by the pre-Kantian\nphilosophers, according to which our sensitive cognitions are relative,\nour intellectual ones absolute. Secondly, as asserting that the object of\nperception, though composed of elements partly material, partly mental,\nyet exhibits both alike in a form modified by their relation to each\nother. The composition is not a mere mechanical juxtaposition, in which\neach part, though acting on the other, retains its own characteristics\nunchanged. It may be rather likened to a chemical fusion, in which both\nelements are present, but each of them is affected by the composition.\nThe material part, therefore, is not \"as much absolute as if it were not\nliable to be mixed up with subjective impressions.\"\n\nBut we must hear the continuation of Mr. Mill's criticism:--\n\n  \"The admixture of the relative element not only does not take away\n  the absolute character of the remainder, but does not even (if our\n  author is right) prevent us from recognising it. The confusion,\n  according to him, is not inextricable. It is for us to 'analyse and\n  distinguish what elements' in an 'act of knowledge' are contributed\n  by the object, and what by our organs, or by the mind. We may\n  neglect to do this, and as far as the mind's share is concerned, we\n  can only do it by the help of philosophy; but it is a task to\n  which, in his opinion, philosophy is equal. By thus stripping off\n  such of the elements in our apparent cognitions of things as are\n  but cognitions of something in us, and consequently relative, we\n  may succeed in uncovering the pure nucleus, the direct intuitions\n  of things in themselves; as we correct the observed positions of\n  the heavenly bodies by allowing for the error due to the refracting\n  influence of the atmospheric medium, an influence which does not\n  alter the facts, but only our perception of them.\"\n\nSurely Mr. Mill here demands much more of philosophy than Sir W. Hamilton\ndeems it capable of accomplishing. Why may not Hamilton, like Kant,\ndistinguish between the permanent and necessary, and the variable and\ncontingent--in other words, between the subjective and the objective\nelements of consciousness, without therefore obtaining a \"direct\nintuition of things in themselves?\" Why may he not distinguish between\nspace and time as the forms of our sensitive cognitions, and the things\nperceived in space and time, which constitute the matter of the same\ncognitions, without thereby having an intuition, on the one hand, of pure\nspace and time with nothing in them, or on the other, of things in\nthemselves out of space and time? If certain elements are always present\nin perception, while certain others change with every act, I may surely\ninfer that the one is due to the permanent subject, the other to the\nvariable object, without thereby knowing what each would be if it could\nbe discerned apart from the other. \"A direct intuition of things in\nthemselves,\" according to Kant and Hamilton, is an intuition of things\nout of space and time. Does Mr. Mill suppose that any natural Realist\nprofesses to have such an intuition?\n\nThe same error of supposing that a doctrine of relativity is necessarily\na doctrine of Idealism, that \"matter known only in relation to us\" can\nmean nothing more than \"matter known only through the mental impressions\nof which it is the unknown cause,\"[AC] runs through the whole of Mr.\nMill's argument against this portion of Sir W. Hamilton's teaching. That\nargument, though repeated in various forms, may be briefly summed up in\none thesis; namely, that the doctrine that our knowledge of matter is\nwholly relative is incompatible with the distinction, which Hamilton\nexpressly makes, between the primary and secondary qualities of body.\n\n [AC]  The assumption that these two expressions are or ought\n       to be synonymous is tacitly made by Mr. Mill at the\n       opening of this chapter. He opens it with a passage from\n       the _Discussions_, in which Hamilton says that the\n       existence of _things in themselves_ is only indirectly\n       revealed to us \"through certain qualities _related to\n       our faculties of knowledge_;\" and then proceeds to show\n       that the author did not hold the doctrine which these\n       phrases \"seem to convey in the only substantial meaning\n       capable of being attached to them;\" namely, \"that we\n       know nothing of _objects_ except their existence, and\n       the impressions produced by them upon the human mind.\"\n       Having thus quietly assumed that \"things in themselves\"\n       are identical with \"objects,\" and \"relations\" with\n       \"impressions on the human mind,\" Mr. Mill bases his\n       whole criticism on this tacit _petitio principii_. He is\n       not aware that though Reid sometimes uses the term\n       _relative_ in this inaccurate sense, Hamilton expressly\n       points out the inaccuracy and explains the proper\n       sense.--(See _Reid's Works_, pp. 313, 322.)\n\nThe most curious circumstance about this criticism is, that, if not\ndirectly borrowed from, it has at least been carefully anticipated by,\nHamilton himself. Of the distinction between primary and secondary\nqualities, as acknowledged by Descartes and Locke, whose theory of\nexternal perception is identical with that which Mr. Mill would force on\nHamilton himself, Hamilton says: \"On the general doctrine, however, of\nthese philosophers, both classes of qualities, as known, are confessedly\nonly states of our own minds; and while we have no right from a\nsubjective affection to infer the existence, far less the corresponding\ncharacter of the existence, of any objective reality, it is evident that\ntheir doctrine, if fairly evolved, would result in a dogmatic or in a\nsceptical negation of the primary no less than of the secondary qualities\nof body, as more than appearances in and for us.\"[AD] It is astonishing\nthat Mr. Mill, who pounces eagerly on every imaginable instance of\nHamilton's inconsistency, should have neglected to notice this, which, if\nhis criticism be true, is the most glaring inconsistency of all.\n\n [AD]  _Reid's Works_, p. 840.\n\nBut Hamilton continues: \"It is therefore manifest that the fundamental\nposition of a consistent theory of dualistic realism is--that our\ncognitions of Extension and its modes are not wholly ideal--that although\nSpace be a native, necessary, _a priori_ form of imagination, and so\nfar, therefore, a mere subjective state, that there is, at the same time,\ncompetent to us, in an _immediate_ perception of external things, the\n_consciousness_ of a really existent, of a really objective, _extended_\nworld.\" Here we have enunciated in one breath, first the subjectivity of\nspace, which is the logical basis of the relative theory of perception;\nand secondly, the objectivity of the extended world, which is the logical\nbasis of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. It is\nmanifest, therefore, that Hamilton had not, as Mr. Mill supposes, ceased\nto hold the one theory when he adopted the other.[AE]\n\n [AE]  See _Examination_, p. 28.\n\nThe key to all this is not difficult to find. It is simply that\n_objective existence_ does not mean existence _per se_; and that a\n_phenomenon_ does not mean a mere mode of mind. Objective existence is\nexistence _as an object_, in perception, and therefore in relation; and a\nphenomenon may be material, as well as mental. The thing _per se_ may be\nonly the unknown cause of what we directly know; but what we directly\nknow is something more than our own sensations. In other words, the\nphenomenal effect is material as well as the cause, and is, indeed, that\nfrom which our primary conceptions of matter are derived. Matter does not\ncease to be matter when modified by its contact with mind, as iron does\nnot cease to be iron when smelted and forged. A horseshoe is something\nvery different from a piece of iron ore; and a man may be acquainted with\nthe former without ever having seen the latter, or knowing what it is\nlike. But would Mr. Mill therefore say that the horseshoe is merely a\nsubjective affection of the skill of the smith--that it is not iron\nmodified by the workman, but the workman or his art impressed by iron?\n\nIf, indeed, Hamilton had said with Locke, that the primary qualities are\nin the bodies themselves, whether we perceive them or no,[AF] he would\nhave laid himself open to Mr. Mill's criticism. But he expressly rejects\nthis statement, and contrasts it with the more cautions language of\nDescartes, \"ut sunt, vel saltem esse possunt.\"[AG] The secondary\nqualities are mere affections of consciousness, which, cannot be\nconceived as existing except in a conscious subject. The primary\nqualities are qualities of body, as perceived in relation to the\npercipient mind, _i.e._, of the phenomenal body perceived as in space.\nHow far they exist in the real body out of relation to us, Hamilton does\nnot attempt to decide.[AH] They are inseparable from our conception of\nbody, which, is derived exclusively from the phenomenon; they may or may\nnot be separable from the thing as it is in itself.\n\n [AF]  _Essay_, ii 8, Sec. 23.\n\n [AG]  _Reid's Works_, p. 839.\n\n [AH]  We have been content to argue this question, as Mr.\n       Mill himself argues it, on the supposition that Sir W.\n       Hamilton held that we are directly percipient of primary\n       qualities in external bodies. Strictly speaking, however,\n       Hamilton held that the primary qualities are immediately\n       perceived only in our organism as extended, and\n       inferred to exist in extra-organic bodies. The external\n       world is immediately apprehended only in its\n       secundo-primary character, as resisting our locomotive\n       energy. But as the organism, in this theory, is a\n       material _non-ego_ equally with the rest of matter, and as\n       to press this distinction would only affect the verbal\n       accuracy, not the substantial justice, of Mr. Mill's\n       criticisms, we have preferred to meet him on the ground\n       he has himself chosen. The same error, of supposing that\n       \"presentationism\" is identical with \"noumenalism,\" and\n       \"phenomenalism\" with \"representationism,\" runs through\n       the whole of Mr. Stirling's recent criticism of Hamilton's\n       theory of perception. It is curious, however, that the\n       very passage (_Lectures_, i., p. 146) which Mr. Mill cites\n       as proving that Hamilton, in spite of his professed\n       phenomenalism, was an unconscious noumenalist, is\n       employed by Mr. Stirling to prove that, in spite of his\n       professed presentationism, he was an unconscious\n       representationist. The two critics tilt at Hamilton\n       from opposite quarters: he has only to stand aside and let\n       them run against each other.\n\nUnder this explanation, it is manifest that the doctrine, that matter as\na subject or substratum of attributes is unknown and unknowable, is\ntotally different from that of cosmothetic idealism, with which Mr Mill\nconfounds it;[AI] and that a philosopher may without inconsistency\naccept the former and reject the latter. The former, while it holds the\nmaterial substance to be unknown, does not deny that some of the\nattributes of matter are perceived immediately as material, though, it\nmay be, modified by contact with mind. The latter maintains that the\nattributes, as well as the substance, are not perceived immediately as\nmaterial, but mediately through the intervention of immaterial\nrepresentatives. It is also manifest that, in answer to Mr. Mill's\nquestion, which of Hamilton's two \"cardinal doctrines,\" Relativity or\nNatural Realism, \"is to be taken in a non-natural sense,\"[AJ] we must\nsay, neither. The two doctrines are quite compatible with each other, and\nneither requires a non-natural interpretation to reconcile it to its\ncompanion.\n\n [AI]  _Examination_, p. 23.\n\n [AJ]  _Examination_, p. 20.\n\nThe doctrine of relativity derives its chief practical value from its\nconnection with the next great doctrine of Hamilton's philosophy, the\nincognisability of the Absolute and the Infinite. For this doctrine\nbrings Ontology into contact with Theology; and it is only in relation to\ntheology that ontology acquires a practical importance. With respect to\nthe other two \"ideas of the pure reason,\" as Kant calls them, the human\nsoul and the world, the question, whether we know them as realities or as\nphenomena, may assist us in dealing with certain metaphysical\ndifficulties, but need not affect our practical conduct. For we have an\nimmediate intuition of the attributes of mind and matter, at least as\nphenomenal objects, and by these intuitions may be tested the accuracy of\nthe conceptions derived from them, sufficiently for all practical\npurposes. A man will equally avoid walking over a precipice, and is\nlogically as consistent in avoiding it, whether he regard the precipice\nas a real thing, or as a mere phenomenon. But in the province of theology\nthis is not the case. We have no immediate intuition of the Divine\nattributes, even as phenomena; we only infer their existence and nature\nfrom certain similar attributes of which we are immediately conscious in\nourselves. And hence arises the question, How far does the similarity\nextend, and to what extent is the accuracy of our conceptions guaranteed\nby the intuition, not of the object to be conceived, but of something\nmore or less nearly resembling it? But this is not all. Our knowledge of\nGod, originally derived from personal consciousness, receives accession\nfrom two other sources--from the external world, as His work; and from\nrevelation, as His word; and the conclusions derived from each have to be\ncompared together. Should any discrepancy arise between them, are we at\nonce warranted in rejecting one class of conclusions in favour of the\nother two, or two in favour of the third? or are we at liberty to say\nthat our knowledge in respect of all alike is of such an imperfect and\nindirect character that we are warranted in believing that some\nreconciliation may exist, though our ignorance prevents us from\ndiscovering what it is? Here at least is a practical question of the very\nhighest importance. In the early part of our previous remarks, we have\nendeavoured to show how this question has been answered by orthodox\ntheologians of various ages, and how Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy\nsupports that answer. We have now to consider Mr Mill's chapter of\ncriticisms.\n\nIt is always unfortunate to make a stumble on the threshold; and Mr.\nMill's opening paragraph makes two. \"The name of God,\" he says, \"is\nveiled under two extremely abstract phrases, 'the Infinite and the\nAbsolute.'... But it is one of the most unquestionable of all logical\nmaxims, that the meaning of the abstract must be sought in the concrete,\nand not conversely.\"[AK]--Now, in the first place, \"the Infinite\" and\n\"the Absolute,\" even in the sense in which they are both predicable of\nGod, are no more names of God than \"the creature\" and \"the finite\" are\nnames of man. They are the names of certain attributes, which further\ninquiry may, perhaps, show to belong to God and to no other being, but\nwhich do not in their signification express this, and do not constitute\nour primary idea of God, which is that of a Person. Men may believe in an\nabsolute and infinite, without in any proper sense believing in God; and\nthousands upon thousands of pious men have prayed to a personal God, who\nhave never heard of the absolute and the infinite, and who would not\nunderstand the expressions if they heard them. But, in the second place,\n\"the absolute\" and \"the infinite,\" in Sir W. Hamilton's sense of the\nterms, cannot both be names of God, for the simple reason that they are\ncontradictory of each other, and are proposed as alternatives which\ncannot both be accepted as predicates of the same subject. For Hamilton,\nwhatever Mr. Mill may do, did not fall into the absurdity of maintaining\nthat God in some of His attributes is absolute without being infinite,\nand in others is infinite without being absolute.[AL]\n\n [AK]  _Examination_, p. 32.\n\n [AL]  See _Examination_, p. 35.\n\nBut we have not yet done with this single paragraph. After thus making\ntwo errors in his exposition of his opponent's doctrine, Mr. Mill\nimmediately proceeds to a third, in his criticism of it. By following his\n\"most unquestionable of all logical maxims,\" and substituting the name of\nGod in the place of \"the Infinite\" and \"the Absolute,\" he exactly\nreverses Sir W. Hamilton's argument, and makes his own attempted\nrefutation of it a glaring _ignoratio elenchi_.\n\nOne of the purposes of Hamilton's argument is to show that we have no\npositive conception of an Infinite Being; that when we attempt to form\nsuch a conception, we do but produce a distorted representation of the\nfinite; and hence, that our so-called conception of the infinite is not\nthe true infinite. Hence it is not to be wondered at--nay, it is a\nnatural consequence of this doctrine,--that our positive conception of\nGod as a Person cannot be included under this pseudo-concept of the\nInfinite. Whereas Mr. Mill, by laying down the maxim that the meaning of\nthe abstract must be sought in the concrete, quietly assumes that this\npseudo-infinite is a proper predicate of God, to be tested by its\napplicability to the subject, and that what Hamilton says of _this_\ninfinite cannot be true unless it is also true of God. Of this\nrefutation, Hamilton, were he living, might truly say, as he said of a\nformer criticism on another part of his writings,--\"This elaborate parade\nof argument is literally answered in two words--_Quis dubitavit?_\"\n\nBut if the substitution of God for the Infinite be thus a perversion of\nHamilton's argument, what shall we say to a similar substitution in the\ncase of the Absolute? Hamilton distinctly tells us that there is one\nsense of the term _absolute_ in which it is contradictory of the\ninfinite, and therefore is not predicable of God at all. Mr. Mill admits\nthat Hamilton, throughout the greater part of his arguments, employs the\nterm in this sense; and he then actually proceeds to \"test\" these\narguments \"by substituting the concrete, God, for the abstract,\nAbsolute;\" _i.e._, by substituting God for something which Hamilton\ndefines as contradictory to the nature of God. Can the force of confusion\ngo further? Is it possible for perverse criticism more utterly, we do not\nsay to misrepresent, but literally to invert an author's meaning?\n\nThe source of all these errors, and of a great many more, is simply this.\nMr. Mill is aware, from Hamilton's express assertion, that the word\n_absolute_ may be used in two distinct and even contradictory senses; but\nhe is wholly unable to see what those senses are, or when Hamilton is\nusing the term in the one sense, and when in the other. Let us endeavour\nto clear up some of this confusion.\n\nHamilton's article on the Philosophy of the Unconditioned is a criticism,\npartly of Schelling, partly of Cousin; and Schelling and Cousin only\nattempted in a new form, under the influence of the Kantian philosophy,\nto solve the problem with which philosophy in all ages has attempted to\ngrapple,--the problem of the Unconditioned.\n\n\"The unconditioned\" is a term which, while retaining the same general\nmeaning, admits of various applications, particular or universal. It may\nbe the unconditioned as regards some special relation, or the\nunconditioned as regards all relations whatever. Thus there may be the\nunconditioned in Psychology--the human soul considered as a substance;\nthe unconditioned in Cosmology--the world considered as a single whole;\nthe unconditioned in Theology--God in His own nature, as distinguished\nfrom His manifestations to us; or, finally, the unconditioned _par\nexcellence_--the unconditioned in Ontology--the being on which all other\nbeing depends. It is of course possible to identify any one of the three\nfirst with the last. It is possible to adopt a system of Egoism, and to\nmaintain that all phenomena are modes of my mind, and that the substance\nof my mind is the only real existence. It is possible to adopt a system\nof Materialism, and to maintain that all phenomena are modes of matter,\nand that the material substance of the world is the only real existence.\nOr it is possible to adopt a system of Pantheism, and to maintain that\nall phenomena are modes of the Divine existence, and that God is the only\nreality. But the several notions are in themselves distinct, though one\nmay ultimately be predicated of another.\n\nThe general notion of the Unconditioned is the same in all these cases,\nand all must finally culminate in the last, the Unconditioned _par\nexcellence_. The general notion is that of the One as distinguished from\nthe Many, the substance from its accidents, the permanent reality from\nits variable modifications. Thought, will, sensation, are modes of my\nexistence. What is the _I_ that is one and the same in all? Extension,\nfigure, resistance, are attributes of matter. What is the one substance\nto which these attributes belong? But the generalisation cannot stop\nhere. If matter differs from mind, the _non-ego_ from the _ego_, as one\nthing from another, there must be some special point of difference,\nwhich, is the condition of the existence of each in this or that\nparticular manner. Unconditioned existence, therefore, in the highest\nsense of the term, cannot be the existence of _this_ as distinguished\nfrom _that_; it must be existence _per se_, the ground and principle of\nall conditioned or special existence. This is the Unconditioned, properly\nso called: the unconditioned in Schelling's sense, as the indifference of\nsubject and object: and it is against this that Hamilton's arguments are\ndirected.\n\nThe question is this. Is this Unconditioned a mere abstraction, the\nproduct of our own minds; or can it be conceived as having a real\nexistence _per se_, and, as such, can it be identified with God as the\nsource of all existence? Hamilton maintains that it is a mere\nabstraction, and cannot be so identified; that, far from being \"a name of\nGod,\" it is a name of nothing at all. \"By abstraction,\" he says, \"we\nannihilate the object, and by abstraction we annihilate the subject of\nconsciousness. But what remains? _Nothing._\" When we attempt to conceive\nit as a reality, we \"hypostatise the zero.\"[AM]\n\n [AM]  _Discussions_, p. 21.\n\nIn order to conceive the Unconditioned existing as a thing, we must\nconceive it as existing out of relation to everything else. For if\nnothing beyond itself is necessary as a condition of its existence, it\ncan exist separate from everything else; and its pure existence as the\nunconditioned is so separate. It must therefore be conceivable as the\nsole existence, having no plurality beyond itself; and as simple, having\nno plurality within itself. For if we cannot conceive it as existing\napart from other things, we cannot conceive it as independent of them;\nand if we conceive it as a compound of parts, we have further to ask as\nbefore, what is the principle of unity which binds these parts into one\nwhole? If there is such a principle, this is the true unconditioned; if\nthere is no such principle, there is no unconditioned; for that which\ncannot exist except as a compound is dependent for its existence on that\nof its several constituents. The unconditioned must therefore be\nconceived as one, as simple, and as universal.\n\nIs such a conception possible, whether in ordinary consciousness, as\nCousin says, or in an extraordinary intuition, as Schelling says? Let us\ntry the former. Consciousness is subject to the law of Time. A phenomenon\nis presented to us in time, as dependent on some previous phenomenon or\nthing. I wish to pursue the chain in thought till I arrive at something\nindependent. If I could reach in thought a beginning of time, and\ndiscover some first fact with nothing preceding it, I should conceive\ntime as absolute--as completed,--and the unconditioned as the first thing\nin time, and therefore as completed also, for it may be considered by\nitself, apart from what depends upon it. Or if time be considered as\nhaving no beginning, thought would still be able to represent to itself\nthat infinity, could it follow out the series of antecedents for ever.\nBut is either of these alternatives possible to thought? If not, we must\nconfess that the unconditioned is inconceivable by ordinary\nconsciousness; and we must found philosophy, with Schelling, on the\nannihilation of consciousness.\n\nBut though Hamilton himself distinguishes between the _unconditioned_ and\nthe _absolute_, using the former term generally, for that which is out of\nall relation, and the latter specially, for that which is out of all\nrelation as complete and finished, his opponent Cousin uses the latter\nterm in a wider sense, as synonymous with the former, and the _infinite_\nas coextensive with both. This, however, does not affect the validity of\nHamilton's argument. For if it can be shown that the absolute and the\ninfinite (in Hamilton's sense) are both inconceivable, the unconditioned\n(or absolute in Cousin's sense), which must be conceived as one or the\nother, is inconceivable also. Or, conversely, if it can be shown that the\nunconditioned, the unrelated in general, is inconceivable, it follows\nthat the absolute and the infinite, as both involving the unrelated, are\ninconceivable also.\n\nWe may now proceed with Mr. Mill's criticism. He says:--\n\n  \"Absolute, in the sense in which, it stands related to Infinite,\n  means (conformably to its etymology) that which is finished or\n  completed. There are some things of which the utmost ideal amount\n  is a limited quantity, though a quantity never actually reached....\n  We may speak of absolutely, but not of infinitely, pure water. The\n  purity of water is not a fact of which, whatever degree we suppose\n  attained, there remains a greater beyond. It has an absolute limit:\n  it is capable of being finished or complete, in thought, if not in\n  reality.\"--(P. 34.)\n\nThis criticism is either incorrect or _nihil ad rem_. If meant as a\nstatement of Hamilton's use of the term, it is incorrect: _absolute_, in\nHamilton's philosophy, does not mean simply \"completed,\" but \"out of\nrelation as completed;\" _i.e._, self-existent in its completeness, and\nnot implying the existence of anything else. If meant in any other sense\nthan Hamilton's, it is irrelevant. Can Mr. Mill really have believed that\nSchelling thought it necessary to invent an intellectual intuition out of\ntime and out of consciousness, in order to contemplate \"an ideal limited\nquantity,\" such as the complete purity of water?\n\nMr. Mill continues:--\n\n  \"Though the idea of Absolute is thus contrasted with that of\n  Infinite, the one is equally fitted with the other to be predicated\n  of God; but not in respect of the same attributes. There is no\n  incorrectness of speech in the phrase Infinite Power: because the\n  notion it expresses is that of a Being who has the power of doing\n  all things which we know or can conceive, and more. But in speaking\n  of knowledge, Absolute is the proper word, and not Infinite. The\n  highest degree of knowledge that can be spoken of with a meaning,\n  only amounts to knowing all that there is to be known: when that\n  point is reached, knowledge has attained its utmost limit. So of\n  goodness or justice: they cannot be more than perfect. There are\n  not infinite degrees of right. The will is either entirely right,\n  or wrong in different degrees.\"--(P. 35.)\n\nSurely, whatever Divine power can do, Divine knowledge can know as\npossible to be done. The one, therefore, must be as infinite as the\nother. And what of Divine goodness? An angel or a glorified saint is\nabsolutely good in Mr. Mill's sense of the term. His \"will is entirely\nright.\" Does Mr. Mill mean to say that there is no difference, even in\ndegree, between the goodness of God and that of one of His creatures?\nBut, even supposing his statement to be true, how is it relevant to the\nmatter under discussion? Can Mr. Mill possibly be ignorant that all these\nattributes are relations; that the Absolute in Hamilton's sense, \"the\nunconditionally limited,\" is not predicable of God at all; and that when\ndivines and philosophers speak of the absolute nature of God, they mean a\nnature in which there is no distinction of attributes at all?\n\nMr. Mill then proceeds to give a summary of Hamilton's arguments against\nCousin, preparatory to refuting them. In the course of this summary he\nsays:--\n\n  \"Let me ask, _en passant_, where is the necessity for supposing\n  that, if the Absolute, or, to speak plainly, if God, is only known\n  to us in the character of a cause, he must therefore 'exist merely\n  as a cause,' and be merely 'a mean towards an end?' It is surely\n  possible to maintain that the Deity is known to us only as he who\n  feeds the ravens, without supposing that the Divine Intelligence\n  exists solely in order that the ravens may be fed.\"[AN]--(P.\n  42.)\n\n [AN]  In a note to this passage, Mr. Mill makes some sarcastic\n       comments on an argument of Hamilton's against Cousin's\n       theory that God is necessarily determined to create. \"On\n       this hypothesis,\" says Hamilton, \"God, as necessarily\n       determined to pass from absolute essence to relative\n       manifestation, is determined to pass either from the\n       better to the worse, or from the worse to the better.\"\n       Mr. Mill calls this argument \"a curiosity of\n       dialectics,\" and answers, \"Perfect wisdom would have\n       begun to will the new state at the precise moment when\n       it began to be better than the old.\" Hamilton is not\n       speaking of states of things, but of states of the\n       Divine nature, as creative or not creative; and Mr.\n       Mill's argument, to refute Hamilton, must suppose a time\n       when the new nature of God begins to be better than the\n       old! Mr. Mill would perhaps have spoken of Hamilton's\n       argument with more respect had he known that it is taken\n       from Plato.\n\nOn this we would remark, _en passant_, that this is precisely\nHamilton's own doctrine, that the sphere of our belief is more extensive\nthan that of our knowledge. The purport of Hamilton's argument is to show\nthat the Absolute, as conceived by Cousin, is not a true Absolute\n(_Infinito-Absolute_), and therefore does not represent the real nature\nof God. His argument is this: \"Cousin's Absolute exists merely as a\ncause: God does not exist merely as a cause: therefore Cousin's Absolute\nis not God.\" Mr. Mill actually mistakes the position which Hamilton is\nopposing for that which he is maintaining. Such an error does not lead\nus to expect much from his subsequent refutation.\n\nHis first criticism is a curious specimen of his reading in philosophy.\nHe says:--\n\n  \"When the True or the Beautiful are spoken of, the phrase is meant\n  to include all things whatever that are true, or all things\n  whatever that are beautiful. If this rule is good for other\n  abstractions, it is good for the Absolute. The word is devoid of\n  meaning unless in reference to predicates of some sort.... If we\n  are told, therefore, that there is some Being who is, or which is,\n  the Absolute,--not something absolute, but the Absolute\n  itself,--the proposition can be understood in no other sense than\n  that the supposed Being possesses in absolute completeness _all_\n  predicates; is absolutely good and absolutely bad; absolutely wise\n  and absolutely stupid; and so forth.\"[AO]--(P. 43.)\n\n [AO]  In support of this position, Mr. Mill cites Hegel--\"What\n       kind of an absolute Being is that which does not contain\n       in itself all that is actual, even evil included?\" We\n       are not concerned to defend Hegel's position; but he was\n       not quite so absurd as to mean what Mr. Mill supposes\n       him to have meant. Does not Mr. Mill know that it was\n       one of Hegel's fundamental positions, that the Divine\n       nature cannot be expressed by a plurality of\n       predicates?\n\nPlato expressly distinguishes between \"the beautiful\" and \"things that\nare beautiful,\" as the One in contrast to the Many--the Real in contrast\nto the Apparent.[AP] It is, of course, quite possible that Plato may be\nwrong, and Mr. Mill right; but the mere fact of their antagonism is\nsufficient to show that the meaning of \"the phrase\" need not be what Mr.\nMill supposes it must be. In fact, \"the Absolute\" in philosophy always\nhas meant the One as distinguished from the Many, not the One as\nincluding the Many. But, as applied to Sir W. Hamilton, Mr. Mill's\nremarks on \"the Absolute,\" and his subsequent remarks on \"the Infinite,\"\nnot only misrepresent Hamilton's position, but exactly reverse it.\nHamilton maintains that the terms \"absolute\" and \"infinite\" are perfectly\nintelligible as abstractions, as much so as \"relative\" and \"finite;\" for\n\"correlatives suggest each other,\" and the \"knowledge of contradictories\nis one;\" but he denies that a concrete thing or object can be positively\nconceived as absolute or infinite. Mr. Mill represents him as only\nproving that the \"unmeaning abstractions are unknowable,\"--abstractions\nwhich Hamilton does not assert to be unmeaning; and which he regards as\nknowable in the only sense in which such abstractions can be known, viz.,\nby understanding the meaning of their names.[AQ]\n\n [AP]  _Republic_, book v., p. 479.\n\n [AQ]  This confusion between conceiving a concrete thing and\n       knowing the meaning of abstract terms is as old as\n       Toland's _Christianity not Mysterious_, and, indeed, has\n       its germ, though not its development, in the teaching of\n       his assumed master, Locke. Locke taught that all our\n       knowledge is founded on simple ideas, and that a complex\n       idea is merely an accumulation of simple ones. Hence\n       Toland maintained that no object could be mysterious or\n       inconceivable if the terms in which its several\n       attributes are expressed have ideas corresponding to\n       them. But, in point of fact, no simple idea can be\n       conceived as an object by itself, though the word by\n       which it is signified has a perfectly intelligible\n       meaning. I cannot, _e.g._, conceive whiteness by itself,\n       though I can conceive a white wall, _i.e._, whiteness in\n       combination with other attributes in a concrete object.\n       To conceive attributes as coexisting, however, we must\n       conceive them as coexisting in a certain manner; for an\n       object of conception is not a mere heap of ideas, but an\n       organized whole, whose constituent ideas exist in a\n       particular combination with and relation to each other.\n       To conceive, therefore, we must not only be able to\n       apprehend each idea separately in the abstract, but also\n       the manner in which they may possibly exist in\n       combination with each other.\n\n  \"Something infinite,\" says Mr. Mill, \"is a conception which, like\n  most of our complex ideas, contains a negative element, but which\n  contains positive elements also. Infinite space, for instance; is\n  there nothing positive in that? The negative part of this\n  conception is the absence of bounds. The positive are, the idea of\n  space, and of space greater than any finite space.\"--(P. 45.)\n\nThis definition of _infinite space_ is exactly that which Descartes\ngives us of _indefinite extension_,--\"Ita quia non possumus imaginari\nextensionem tam magnam, quin intelligamus adhuc majorem esse posse,\ndicemus magnitudinem rerum possibilium esse indefinitam.\"[AR] So too,\nCudworth,--\"There appeareth no sufficient ground for this positive\ninfinity of space; we being certain of no more than this, that be the\nworld or any figurative body never so great, it is not impossible but that\nit might be still greater and greater without end. Which _indefinite\nincreasableness_ of body and space seems to be mistaken for a _positive\ninfinity_ thereof.\"[AS] And Locke, a philosopher for whom Mr. Mill\nwill probably have more respect than for Descartes or Cudworth, writes\nmore plainly: \"To have actually in the mind the idea of a space infinite,\nis to suppose the mind already passed over, and actually to have a view\nof all those repeated ideas of space, which an endless repetition can\nnever totally represent to it,--which carries in it a plain\ncontradiction.\"[AT] Mr. Mill thus unwittingly illustrates, in his own\nperson, the truth of Hamilton's remark, \"If we dream of effecting this\n[conceiving the infinite in time or space], we only deceive ourselves by\nsubstituting the _indefinite_ for the infinite, than which no two notions\ncan be more opposed.\" In fact, Mr. Mill does not seem to be aware that\nwhat the mathematician calls _infinite_, the metaphysician calls\n_indefinite_, and that arguments drawn from the mathematical use of the\nterm _infinite_ are wholly irrelevant to the metaphysical. How, indeed,\ncould it be otherwise? Can any man suppose that, when the Divine\nattributes are spoken of as infinite, it is meant that they are\nindefinitely increasable?[AU]\n\n [AR]  _Principia_, i., 26.\n\n [AS]  _Intellectual System_, ed. Harrison, vol. iii., p. 131.\n\n [AT]  _Essay_, ii., 17, 7.\n\n [AU]  One of the ablest mathematicians, and the most\n       persevering Hamiltono-mastix of the day, maintains the\n       applicability of the metaphysical notion of infinity to\n       mathematical magnitudes; but with an assumption which\n       unintentionally vindicates Hamilton's position more\n       fully than could have been done by a professed disciple.\n       \"I shall assume,\" says Professor De Morgan, in a paper\n       recently printed among the _Transactions of the\n       Cambridge Philosophical Society_, \"the notion of\n       infinity and of its reciprocal infinitesimal: that a\n       line can be conceived infinite, and therefore having\n       points at an infinite distance. Image apart, which we\n       cannot have, it seems to me clear that a line of\n       infinite length, without points at an infinite distance,\n       is a contradiction.\" Now it is easy to show, by mere\n       reasoning, without any image, that this assumption is\n       equally a contradiction. For if space is finite, every\n       line in space must be finite also; and if space is\n       infinite, every point in space must have infinite space\n       beyond it in every direction, and therefore cannot be at\n       the greatest possible distance from another point. Or\n       thus: Any two points in space are the extremities of the\n       line connecting them; but an infinite line has no\n       extremities; therefore no two points in space can be\n       connected together by an infinite line.\n\nIn fact, it is the \"concrete reality,\" the \"something infinite,\" and not\nthe mere abstraction of infinity, which is only conceivable as a\nnegation. Every \"something\" that has ever been intuitively present to my\nconsciousness is a something finite. When, therefore, I speak of a\n\"something infinite,\" I mean a something existing in a different manner\nfrom all the \"somethings\" of which I have had experience in intuition.\nThus it is apprehended, not positively, but negatively--not directly by\nwhat it is, but indirectly by what it is not. A negative idea is not\nnegative because it is expressed by a negative term, but because it has\nnever been realised in intuition. If infinity, as applied to space, means\nthe same thing as being greater than any finite space, both conceptions\nare equally positive or equally negative. If it does not mean the same\nthing, then, in conceiving a space greater than any finite space, we do\nnot conceive an infinite space.\n\nMr. Mill's next string of criticisms may be very briefly dismissed.\nFirst, Hamilton does _not_, as Mr. Mill asserts, say that \"the\nUnconditioned is inconceivable, because it includes both the Infinite and\nthe Absolute, and these are contradictory of one another.\" His argument\nis a common disjunctive syllogism. The unconditioned, if conceivable at\nall, must be conceived _either_ as the absolute _or_ as the infinite;\nneither of these is possible; therefore the unconditioned is not\nconceivable at all. Nor, secondly, is Sir W. Hamilton guilty of the\n\"strange confusion of ideas\" which Mr. Mill ascribes to him, when he says\nthat the Absolute, as being absolutely One, cannot be known under the\nconditions of plurality and difference. The absolute, as such, must be\nout of all relation, and consequently cannot be conceived in the relation\nof plurality. \"The plurality required,\" says Mr. Mill, \"is not within the\nthing itself, but is made up between itself and other things.\" It is, in\nfact, both; but even granting Mr. Mill's assumption, what is a \"plurality\nbetween a thing and other things\" but a relation between them? There is\nundoubtedly a \"strange confusion of ideas\" in this paragraph; but the\nconfusion is not on the part of Sir W. Hamilton. \"Again,\" continues Mr.\nMill, \"even if we concede that a thing cannot be known at all unless\nknown as plural, does it follow that it cannot be known as plural because\nit is also One? Since when have the One and the Many been incompatible\nthings, instead of different aspects of the same thing?... If there is\nany meaning in the words, must not Absolute Unity be Absolute Plurality\nlikewise?\" Mr. Mill's \"since when?\" may be answered in the words of\nPlato:--\"[Greek: Ouden emoige atopon dokei heinai ei hen hapanta\napophainei tis to metechein. tou henos kai tauta tauta polla to\nplethous au metechein; all' ei ho estin hen, auto touto polla apodeixei,\nkai au ta polla de hen, touto ede thaumasomai.]\"[AV] Here we are\nexpressly told that \"absolute unity\" cannot be \"absolute plurality.\" Mr.\nMill may say that Plato is wrong; but he will hardly go so far as to say\nthat there is no meaning in his words. In point of fact, however, it is\nMr. Mill who is in error, and not Plato. In different relations, no\ndoubt, the same concrete object may be regarded as one or as many. The\nsame measure is one foot or twelve inches; the same sum is one shilling\nor twelve pence; but it no more follows that \"absolute unity must be\nabsolute plurality likewise,\" than it follows from the above instances\nthat one is equal to twelve. And, thirdly, when Mr. Mill accuses Sir W.\nHamilton of departing from his own meaning of the term _absolute_, in\nmaintaining that the Absolute cannot be a Cause, he only shows that he\ndoes not himself know what Hamilton's meaning is. \"If Absolute,\" he says,\n\"means finished, perfected, completed, may there not be a finished,\nperfected, and completed Cause?\" Hamilton's Absolute is that which is\n\"_out of relation_, as finished, perfect, complete;\" and a Cause, as\nsuch, is both in relation and incomplete. It is in relation to its\neffect; and it is incomplete without its effect. Finally, when Mr. Mill\ncharges Sir W. Hamilton with maintaining \"that extension and figure are\nof the essence of matter, and perceived as such by intuition,\" we must\nbriefly reply that Hamilton does no such thing. He is not speaking of the\nessence of matter _per se_, but only of matter as apprehended in relation\nto us.\n\n [AV]  _Parmenides_, p. 129.\n\nMr. Mill concludes this chapter with an attempt to discover the meaning\nof Hamilton's assertion, \"to think is to condition.\" We have already\nexplained what Hamilton meant by this expression; and we recur to the\nsubject now, only to show the easy manner in which Mr. Mill manages to\nmiss the point of an argument with the clue lying straight before him.\n\"Did any,\" he says (of those who say that the Absolute is thinkable),\n\"profess to think it in any other manner than by distinguishing it from\nother things?\" Now this is the very thing which, according to Hamilton,\nSchelling actually did. Mr. Mill does not attempt to show that Hamilton\nis wrong in his interpretation of Schelling, nor, if he is right, what\nwere the reasons which led Schelling to so paradoxical a position: he\nsimply assumes that no man could hold Schelling's view, and there is an\nend of it.[AW] Hamilton's purpose is to reassert in substance the\ndoctrine which Kant maintained, and which Schelling denied; and the\nnatural way to ascertain his meaning would be by reference to these two\nphilosophers. But this is not the method of Mr. Mill, here or elsewhere.\nHe generally endeavours to ascertain Hamilton's meaning by ranging the\nwide field of possibilities. He tells us what a phrase means in certain\nauthors of whom Hamilton is not thinking, or in reference to certain\nmatters which Hamilton is not discussing; but he hardly ever attempts to\ntrace the history of Hamilton's own view, or the train of thought by\nwhich it suggested itself to his mind. And the result of this is, that\nMr. Mill's interpretations are generally in the potential mood. He wastes\na good deal of conjecture in discovering what Hamilton might have meant,\nwhen a little attention in the right quarter would have shown what he did\nmean.\n\n [AW]  Mr. Mill does not expressly name Schelling in this\n       sentence: but he does so shortly afterwards; and his\n       remark is of the same character with the previous one.\n       \"Even Schelling,\" he says, \"was not so gratuitously\n       absurd as to deny that the Absolute must be known\n       according to the capacities of that which knows\n       it--though he was forced to invent a special capacity\n       for the purpose.\" But if this capacity is an \"invention\"\n       of Schelling's, and if he was \"forced\" to invent it,\n       Hamilton's point is proved. To think, according to all\n       the real operations of thought which consciousness makes\n       known to us, is to condition. And the faculty of the\n       unconditioned is an invention of Schelling's, not known\n       to consciousness. In other words: all our real faculties\n       bear witness to the truth of Hamilton's statement; and\n       the only way of controverting it is to invent an\n       imaginary faculty for the purpose.\n\nThe third feature of Hamilton's philosophy which we charged Mr. Mill with\nmisunderstanding, is the distinction between Knowledge and Belief. In the\nearly part of this article, we endeavoured to explain the true nature of\nthis distinction; we have now only a very limited space to notice Mr.\nMill's criticisms on it. Hamilton, he says, admitted \"a second source of\nintellectual conviction called Belief.\" Now Belief is not a \"source\" of\nany conviction, but the conviction itself. No man would say that he is\nconvinced of the truth of a proposition _because_ he believes it; his\nbelief in its truth is the same thing as his conviction of its truth.\nBelief, then, is not a source of conviction, but a conviction having\nsources of its own. The question is, have we legitimate sources of\nconviction, distinct from those which constitute Knowledge properly so\ncalled? Now here it should be remembered that the distinction is not one\ninvented by Hamilton to meet the exigencies of his own system. He\nenumerates as many as twenty-two authors, of the most various schools of\nphilosophy, who all acknowledged it before him. Such a concurrence is no\nslight argument in favour of the reality of the distinction. We do not\nsay that these writers, or Hamilton himself, have always expressed this\ndistinction in the best language, or applied it in the best manner; but\nwe say that it is a true distinction, and that it is valid for the\nprincipal purpose to which Hamilton applied it.\n\nWe do not agree with all the details of Hamilton's application. We do not\nagree with him, though he is supported by very eminent authorities, in\nclassifying our conviction of axiomatic principles as _belief_, and not\nas _knowledge_.[AX] But this question does not directly bear on Mr.\nMill's criticism. The point of that criticism is, that Hamilton, by\nadmitting a _belief_ in the infinite and unrelated, nullifies his own\ndoctrine, that all _knowledge_ is of the finite and relative. Let us\nsee.\n\n [AX]  Hamilton's distinction is in principle the same as that\n       which we have given in our previous remarks (pp. 18,\n       19). He says, \"A conviction is incomprehensible when\n       there is merely given to us in consciousness--_That its\n       object is_ ([Greek: hoti esti]), and when we are unable\n       to comprehend through a higher notion or belief _Why or\n       How it is_ ([Greek: dioti esti]).\"--(Reid's Works, p.\n       754.) We would distinguish between _why_ and _how_,\n       between [Greek: dioti], and [Greek: pos]. We can give\n       no reason _why_ two straight lines cannot enclose a\n       space; but we can comprehend _how_ they cannot. We have\n       only to form the corresponding image, to see the manner\n       in which the two attributes coexist in one object. But\n       when I say that I believe in the existence of a\n       spiritual being who sees without eyes, I cannot conceive\n       the _manner_ in which seeing coexists with the absence\n       of the bodily organ of sight. We believe that the true\n       distinction between knowledge and belief may ultimately\n       be referred to the presence or absence of the\n       corresponding intuition; but to show this in the various\n       instances would require a longer dissertation than our\n       present limits will allow.\n\nWe may believe _that_ a thing is, without being able to conceive _how_ it\nis. I believe _that_ God is a person, and also _that_ He is infinite;\nthough I cannot conceive _how_ the attributes of personality and infinity\nexist together. All my knowledge of personality is derived from my\nconsciousness of my own finite personality. I therefore believe in the\ncoexistence of attributes in God, in some manner different from that in\nwhich they coexist in me as limiting each other: and thus I believe in\nthe fact, though I am unable to conceive the manner. So, again, Kant\nbrings certain counter arguments, to prove, on the one side, that the\nworld has a beginning in time, and, on the other side, that it has not a\nbeginning. Now suppose I am unable to refute either of these courses of\nargument, am I therefore compelled to have no belief at all? May I not\nsay, I believe, in spite of Kant, _that_ the world has a beginning in\ntime, though I am unable to conceive _how_ it can have so begun? What is\nthis, again, but a belief in an absolute reality beyond the sphere of my\nrelative knowledge?\n\n\"I am not now considering,\" says Mr. Mill, \"what it is that, in our\nauthor's opinion, we are bound to believe concerning the unknowable.\"\nWhy, this was the very thing he ought to have considered, before\npronouncing the position to be untenable, or to be irreconcilable with\nsomething else. Meanwhile, it is instructive to observe that Mr. Mill\nhimself believes, or requires his readers to believe, something\nconcerning the unknown. He does not know, or at any rate he does not tell\nhis readers, what Hamilton requires them to believe concerning the\nunknowable; but he himself believes, and requires them to believe, that\nthis unknown something is incompatible with the doctrine that knowledge\nis relative. We cannot regard this as a very satisfactory mode of\nrefuting Hamilton's thesis.[AY]\n\n [AY]  In a subsequent chapter (p. 120), Mr. Mill endeavours to\n       overthrow this distinction between Knowledge and Belief,\n       by means of Hamilton's own theory of Consciousness.\n       Hamilton maintains that we cannot be conscious of a\n       mental operation without being conscious of its object.\n       On this Mr. Mill retorts that if, as Hamilton admits, we\n       are conscious of a belief in the Infinite and the\n       Absolute, we must be conscious of the Infinite and the\n       Absolute themselves; and such consciousness is\n       Knowledge. The fallacy of this retort is transparent.\n       The immediate object of Belief is a _proposition_ which\n       I hold to be true, not a _thing_ apprehended in an act\n       of conception. I believe in an infinite God; _i.e._, I\n       believe _that_ God is infinite: I believe that the\n       attributes which I ascribe to God exist in Him in an\n       infinite degree. Now, to believe this proposition, I\n       must, of course, be conscious of its meaning; but I am\n       not therefore conscious of the Infinite God as an object\n       of conception; for this would require further an\n       apprehension of the manner in which these infinite\n       attributes coexist so as to form one object. The whole\n       argument of this eighth chapter is confused, owing to\n       Mr. Mill not having distinguished between those passages\n       in which Sir W. Hamilton is merely using an _argumentum\n       ad hominem_ in relation to Reid, and those in which he\n       is reasoning from general principles.\n\nBut if Mr. Mill is unjust towards the distinction between Knowledge and\nBelief, as held by Sir W. Hamilton, he makes ample amends to the injured\ntheory in the next chapter, by enlarging the province of credibility far\nbeyond any extent which Hamilton would have dreamed of claiming for it.\nConceivability or inconceivability, he tells us, are usually dependent on\nassociation; and it is quite possible that, under other associations, we\nmight be able to conceive, and therefore to believe, anything short of\nthe direct contradiction that the same thing is and is not. It is not in\nitself incredible, that a square may at the same time be round, that two\nstraight lines may enclose a space, or even that two and two may make\nfive.[AZ] But whatever concessions Mr. Mill may make on this point, he\nis at least fully determined that Sir W. Hamilton shall derive no benefit\nfrom them; for he forthwith proceeds to charge Sir William with confusing\nthree distinct senses of the term _conception_--a confusion which exists\nsolely in his own imagination,[BA]--and to assert that the Philosophy\nof the Conditioned is entirely founded on a mistake, inasmuch as infinite\nspace on the one hand, and, on the other, both an absolute minimum and an\ninfinite divisibility of space, are perfectly conceivable. With regard to\nthe former of these two assertions, Mr. Mill's whole argument is\nvitiated, as we have already shown, by his confusion between _infinite_\nand _indefinite_; but it is worth while to quote one of his special\ninstances in this chapter, as a specimen of the kind of reasoning which\nan eminent writer on logic can sometimes employ. In reference to Sir W.\nHamilton's assertion, that infinite space would require infinite time to\nconceive it, he says, \"Let us try the doctrine upon a complex whole,\nshort of infinite, such as the number 695,788. Sir W. Hamilton would not,\nI suppose, have maintained that this number is inconceivable. How long\ndid he think it would take to go over every separate unit of this whole,\nso as to obtain a perfect knowledge of the exact sum, as different from\nall other sums, either greater or less?\"\n\n [AZ]  In reference to this last paradox, Mr. Mill quotes from\n       _Essays by a Barrister_: \"There is a world in which,\n       whenever two pairs of things are either placed in\n       proximity or are contemplated together, a fifth thing is\n       immediately created and brought within the contemplation\n       of the mind engaged in putting two and two together....\n       In such a world surely two and two would make five. That\n       is, the result to the mind of contemplating two twos\n       would be to count five.\" The answer to this reasoning\n       has been already given by Archdeacon Lee in his Essay on\n       Miracles. The \"five\" in this case is not the sum of two\n       and two, but of two and two _plus_ the new creature,\n       _i.e._, of two and two _plus_ one.\n\n [BA]  The sense in which Sir W. Hamilton himself uses the word\n       _conception_ is explained in a note to _Reid's Works_,\n       p. 377--namely, the combination of two or more\n       attributes in a _unity of representation_. The second\n       sense which Mr. Mill imagines is simply a mistake of his\n       own. When Hamilton speaks of being \"unable to conceive\n       as possible,\" he does not mean, as Mr. Mill supposes,\n       physically possible under the law of gravitation or some\n       other law of matter, but mentally possible as a\n       representation or image; and thus the supposed second\n       sense is identical with the first. The third sense may\n       also be reduced to the first; for to conceive two\n       attributes as combined in one representation is to form\n       a notion subordinate to those of each attribute\n       separately. We do not say that Sir W. Hamilton has been\n       uniformly accurate in his application of the test of\n       conceivability; but we say that his inaccuracies, such\n       as they are, do not affect the theory of the\n       conditioned, and that in all the long extracts which Mr.\n       Mill quotes, with footnotes, indicating \"first sense,\"\n       \"second sense,\" \"third sense,\" the author's meaning may\n       be more accurately explained in the first sense only.\n\nIt is marvellous that it should not have occurred to Mr. Mill, while he\nwas writing this passage, \"How comes this large number to be a 'whole' at\nall; and how comes it that 'this whole,' with all its units, can be\nwritten down by means of six digits?\" Simply because of a conventional\narrangement, by which a single digit, according to its position, can\nexpress, by one mark, tens, hundreds, thousands, &c., of units; and thus\ncan exhaust the sum by dealing with its items in large masses. But how\ncan such a process exhaust the infinite? We should like to know how long\nMr. Mill thinks it would take to work out the following problem:--\"If two\nfigures can represent ten, three a hundred, four a thousand, five ten\nthousand, &c., find the number of figures required to represent\ninfinity.\"[BB]\n\n [BB]  Precisely the same misconception of Hamilton's position\n       occurs in Professor De Morgan's paper in the _Cambridge\n       Transactions_, to which we have previously referred. He\n       speaks (p. 13) of the \"notion, which runs through many\n       writers, from Descartes to Hamilton, that the mind must\n       be big enough to _hold_ all it can conceive.\" This\n       notion is certainly not maintained by Hamilton, nor yet\n       by Descartes in the paragraph quoted by Mr. De Morgan;\n       nor, as far as we are aware, in any other part of his\n       works.\n\nInfinite divisibility stands or falls with infinite extension. In both\ncases Mr. Mill confounds infinity with indefiniteness. But with regard to\nan absolute minimum of space, Mr. Mill's argument requires a separate\nnotice.\n\n  \"It is not denied,\" he says, \"that there is a portion of extension\n  which to the naked eye appears an indivisible point; it has been\n  called by philosophers the _minimum visibile_. This minimum we can\n  indefinitely magnify by means of optical instruments, making\n  visible the still smaller parts which compose it. In each\n  successive experiment there is still a _minimum visibile_, anything\n  less than which cannot be discovered with that instrument, but can\n  with one of a higher power. Suppose, now, that as we increase the\n  magnifying power of our instruments, and before we have reached the\n  limit of possible increase, we arrive at a stage at which that\n  which seemed the smallest visible space under a given microscope,\n  does not appear larger under one which, by its mechanical\n  construction, is adapted to magnify more, but still remains\n  apparently indivisible. I say, that if this happened, we should\n  believe in a minimum of extension; or if some _a priori_\n  metaphysical prejudice prevented us from believing it, we should at\n  least be enabled to conceive it.\"--(P. 84.)\n\nThe natural conclusion of most men under such circumstances would be,\nthat there was some fault in the microscope. But even if this conclusion\nwere rejected, we presume Mr. Mill would allow that, under the supposed\ncircumstances, the exact magnitude of the minimum of extension would be\ncalculable. We have only to measure the _minimum visibile_, and know what\nis the magnifying power of our microscope, to determine the exact\ndimensions. Suppose, then, that we assign to it some definite\nmagnitude--say the ten billionth part of an inch,--should we then\nconclude that it is impossible to conceive the twenty billionth part of\nan inch?--in other words, that we have arrived at a definite magnitude\nwhich has no conceivable half? Surely this is a somewhat rash concession\nto be made by a writer who has just told us that numbers may be conceived\nup to infinity; and therefore, of course, down to infinitesimality.\n\nMr. Mill concludes this chapter with an assertion which, even by itself,\nis sufficient to show how very little he has attended to or understood\nthe philosophy which he is attempting to criticise. \"The law of Excluded\nMiddle,\" he says, \"as well as that of Contradiction, is common to all\nphenomena. But it is a doctrine of our author that these laws are true,\nand cannot but be known to be true, of Noumena likewise. It is not merely\nSpace as cognisable by our senses, but Space as it is in itself, which he\naffirms must be either of unlimited or of limited extent\" (p. 86). At\nthis sentence we fairly stand aghast. \"Space as it is in itself!\" the\nNoumenon Space! Has Mr. Mill been all this while \"examining\" Sir William\nHamilton's philosophy, in utter ignorance that the object of that\nphilosophy is the \"Conditioned in Time and _Space_;\" that he accepts\nKant's analysis of time and space as formal necessities of thought, but\npronounces no opinion whatever as to whether time and space can exist as\nNoumena or not? It is the phenomenal space, \"space as cognisable by our\nsenses,\" which Sir W. Hamilton says must be either limited or unlimited:\nconcerning the Noumenon Space, he does not hazard an opinion whether such\na thing exists or not. He says, indeed (and this is probably what has\nmisled Mr. Mill), that the laws of Identity, Contradiction, and Excluded\nMiddle, are laws of things as well as laws of thought;[BC] but he says\nnothing about these laws as predicating infinite or finite extension. On\nthe contrary, he expressly classifies Space under the law of Relativity,\nthe violation of which indicates what may exist, but what we are unable\nto conceive as existing. Briefly, the law of Excluded Middle (to take\nthis instance alone) is a law of things only in its abstract form,\n\"Everything must be A or not A\" (_extended_, if you please, or _not\nextended_); but in its subordinate form, \"Everything extended must be\nextended infinitely or finitely,\" it is only applicable, and only\nintended by Hamilton to be applied, to those _phenomena_ which are\nalready given as extended in some degree.\n\n [BC]  _Discussions_, p. 603.\n\nWe have now examined the first six chapters of Mr. Mill's book,\ncontaining his remarks on that portion of Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy\nwhich he justly regards as comprising the most important of the doctrines\nwhich specially belong to Hamilton himself. The next chapter is an\nepisode, in which Mr. Mill turns aside from Sir W. Hamilton to criticise\nMr. Mansel's _Bampton Lectures_. As our limits do not permit us to carry\non the argument at present through the remainder of Mr. Mill's remarks on\nHamilton himself, we shall conclude our notice with a few words on this\nchapter, as closing the properly metaphysical portion of Mr. Mill's book,\nand as affording ample proof that, in this department of philosophy at\nleast, Mr. Mill's powers of misapprehension do not cease when Sir W.\nHamilton is no longer their object.\n\nMr. Mill's method of criticism makes it generally necessary to commence\nwith a statement of the criticised theory as it really is, before\nproceeding to his exposition of it as it is not. The present instance\noffers no exception to this rule. Mr. Mansel's argument may be briefly\nstated as follows. The primary and essential conception of God,\nimperatively demanded by our moral and religious consciousness, is that\nof a _person_. But personality implies intellectual and moral attributes;\nand the only direct and immediate knowledge which we have of such\nattributes is derived from the testimony of self-consciousness, bearing\nwitness to their existence in a certain manner in ourselves. But when we\nendeavour to transfer the conception of personality, thus obtained, to\nthe domain of theology, we meet with certain difficulties, which, while\nthey are not sufficient to hinder us from _believing_ in the Divine\nPersonality as a fact, yet hinder us from _conceiving_ the manner of its\nexistence, and prevent us from exhibiting our belief as a philosophical\nconclusion, proved by irrefragable reasoning and secured against all\nobjections. These difficulties are occasioned, on the one hand, by the\nso-called Philosophy of the Unconditioned, which in all ages has shown a\ntendency towards Pantheism, and which, in one of its latest and most\nfinished manifestations, announces itself as the exhibition of God as He\nis in His eternal nature before creation; and, on the other hand, by the\nlimitations and conditions to which our own personality is subject, and\nwhich, as we have pointed out in the earlier part of this article, have,\nfrom the very beginning of Christian theology, prevented theologians from\naccepting the limited personality of man as an exact image and\ncounterpart of the unlimited personality of God. These difficulties Mr.\nMansel endeavours to meet in two ways. On the one side, he maintains, in\ncommon with Sir W. Hamilton, that the Philosophy of the Unconditioned, by\nreason of its own incongruities and self-contradictions, has no claim to\nbe accepted as a competent witness in the matter; and on the other side,\nhe maintains, in common with many theologians before him, that human\npersonality cannot be assumed as an exact copy of the Divine, but only as\nthat which is most nearly analogous to it among finite things. But these\ntwo positions, if admitted, involve a corresponding practical conclusion\nas regards the criterion of religious truth or falsehood. Were we\ncapable, either, on the one hand, of a clear conception of the\nUnconditioned, or, on the other, of a direct intuition of the Divine\nAttributes as objects of consciousness, we might be able to construct,\ndeductively or inductively, an exact science of Theology. As it is, we\nare compelled to reason by analogy; and analogy furnishes only\nprobabilities, varying, it may be, from slight presumptions up to moral\ncertainties, but whose weight, in any given case, can only be determined\nby comparison with other evidences. There are three distinct sources from\nwhich we may form a judgment about the ways of God--first, from our own\nmoral and intellectual consciousness, by which we judge _a priori_ of\nwhat God ought to do in a given case, by determining what we should think\nit wise or right for ourselves to do in a similar case; secondly, from\nthe constitution and course of nature, from which we may learn by\nexperience what God's providence in certain cases actually is; and\nthirdly, from revelation, attested by its proper evidences. Where these\nthree agree in their testimony (as in the great majority of cases they\ndo) we have the moral certainty which results from the harmony of all\naccessible evidences: where they appear to differ, we have no right at\nonce to conclude that the second or the third must give way to the first,\nand not _vice versa_; because we have no right to assume that the first\nalone is infallible. In the author's own words: \"The lesson to be learnt\nfrom an examination of the Limits of Religious Thought is not that man's\njudgments are _worthless_ in relation to Divine things, but that they are\n_fallible_: and the probability of error in any particular case can never\nbe fairly estimated without giving their full weight to all collateral\nconsiderations. We are indeed bound to believe that a Revelation given by\nGod can never contain anything that is really unwise or unrighteous; but\nwe are not always capable of estimating exactly the wisdom or\nrighteousness of particular doctrines or precepts. And we are bound to\nbear in mind that _exactly in proportion to the strength of the remaining\nevidence for the Divine origin of a religion, is the probability that we\nmay be mistaken in supposing this or that portion of its contents to be\nunworthy of God._ Taken in conjunction, the two arguments may confirm or\ncorrect each other: taken singly and absolutely, each may vitiate the\nresult which should follow from their joint application.\"[BD]\n\n [BD]  _Bampton Lectures_, p. 156, 4th edition.\n\nIn criticising the first part of this argument--that which is directed\nagainst the deductive philosophy of the Unconditioned--Mr. Mill manifests\nthe same want of acquaintance with its meanings, and with the previous\nhistory of the question; which he had before exhibited in his attack on\nSir W. Hamilton. He begins by finding fault with the definition of the\nAbsolute, which Mr. Mansel (herein departing, and purposely departing,\nfrom Sir W. Hamilton's use of the term) defines as \"that which exists in\nand by itself, having no necessary relation to any other Being.\" On this,\nMr. Mill remarks: \"The first words of his definition would serve for the\ndescription of a Noumenon; but Mr. Mansel's Absolute is only meant to\ndenote one Being, identified with God, and God is not the only Noumenon.\"\nThe description of a Noumenon! This is almost equal to the discovery of a\nNoumenon Space. Does Mr. Mill really suppose that all noumena are\nself-existent? A _noumenon_ (in the sense in which we suppose Mr. Mill to\nunderstand the term, for it has different meanings in different\nphilosophies) implies an existence out of relation to the human\nmind.[BE] But is this the same as being out of all relation whatever,\nas existing \"in and by itself?\" Does Mr. Mill mean to say that a\ncreature, whether perceived by us or not, has no relation to its Creator?\nBut Mr. Mill, as we have seen before, is not much at home when he gets\namong \"noumena.\" We must proceed to his criticism of the second part of\nthe definition,--\"having no necessary relation to any other being.\" Of\nthese words he says, that \"they admit of two constructions. The words in\ntheir natural sense only mean, _capable of existing out of relation to\nanything else_. The argument requires that they should mean _incapable of\nexisting in relation with anything else_.\" And why is this non-natural\nsense to be forced upon very plain words? Because, says Mr. Mill,--\n\n [BE]  Strictly speaking, the term _noumenon_, as meaning that\n       which can be apprehended only by the intellect, implies\n       a relation to the intellect apprehending it; and in this\n       sense [Greek: to nooumenon] is opposed by Plato to\n       [Greek: to horomenon]--the object of intellect to the\n       object of sight. But as the intellect was supposed to\n       take cognisance of things as they are, in opposition to\n       the sensitive perception of things as they appear, the\n       term _noumenon_ became synonymous with _thing in itself_\n       ([Greek: to hon kath' hauto]). And this meaning is\n       retained in the Kantian philosophy, in which the\n       _noumenon_ is identical with the _Ding an sich_. But as\n       Kant denied to the human intellect any immediate\n       intuition of things as they are (though such an\n       intuition may be possible to a superhuman intellect),\n       hence the term _noumenon_ in the Kantian philosophy is\n       opposed to all of which the human intellect can take\n       positive cognisance. Hamilton, in this respect, agrees\n       with Kant. But neither Kant nor Hamilton, in opposing\n       the _thing in itself_ to the _phenomenon_, meant to\n       imply that the former is necessarily self-existent, and\n       therefore uncreated.\n\n  \"In what manner is a possible existence out of all relation,\n  incompatible with the notion of a cause? Have not causes a possible\n  existence apart from their effects? Would the sun, for example, not\n  exist if there were no earth or planets for it to illuminate? Mr.\n  Mansel seems to think that what is capable of existing out of\n  relation, cannot possibly be conceived or known in relation. But\n  this is not so.... Freed from this confusion of ideas, Mr. Mansel's\n  argument resolves itself into this,--The same Being cannot be\n  thought by us both as Cause and as Absolute, because a Cause _as\n  such_ is not Absolute, and Absolute, as such, is not a Cause; which\n  is exactly as if he had said that Newton cannot be thought by us\n  both as an Englishman and as a mathematician, because an\n  Englishman, as such, is not a mathematician, nor a mathematician,\n  as such, an Englishman.\"--(P. 92.)\n\nThe \"confusion of ideas\" is entirely of Mr. Mill's own making, and is\nowing to his having mutilated the argument before criticising it. The\nargument in its original form consists of two parts; the first intended\nto show that the Absolute is not conceived _as such_ in being conceived\nas a Cause; the second to show that the Absolute cannot be conceived\nunder different aspects at different times--first as Absolute, and then\nas Cause. It was the impossibility of this latter alternative which drove\nCousin to the hypothesis of a necessary causation from all eternity. Mr.\nMill entirely omits the latter part of the argument, and treats the\nformer part as if it were the whole. The part criticised by Mr. Mill is\nintended to prove exactly what it does prove, and no more; namely, that a\ncause _as such_ is not the absolute, and that to know a cause _as such_\nis not to know the absolute. We presume Mr. Mill himself will admit that\nto know Newton as a mathematician is not to know him as an Englishman.\nWhether he can be known separately as both, and whether the Absolute in\nthis respect is a parallel case, depends on another consideration, which\nMr. Mill has not noticed. The continuation of Mr. Mill's criticism is\nequally confused. He says:--\n\n  \"The whole of Mr. Mansel's argument for the inconceivability of the\n  Infinite and of the Absolute is one long _ignoratio elenchi_. It\n  has been pointed out in a former chapter that the words Absolute\n  and Infinite have no real meaning, unless we understand by them\n  that which is absolute or infinite in some given attribute; as\n  space is called infinite, meaning that it is infinite in extension;\n  and as God is termed infinite, in the sense of possessing infinite\n  power, and absolute in the sense of absolute goodness or knowledge.\n  It has also been shown that Sir W. Hamilton's arguments for the\n  unknowableness of the Unconditioned do not prove that we cannot\n  know an object which is absolute or infinite in some specific\n  attribute, but only that we cannot know an abstraction called 'The\n  Absolute' or 'The Infinite,' which is supposed to have all\n  attributes at once.\"--(P. 93.)\n\nThe fallacy of this criticism, as regards Sir W. Hamilton, has been\nalready pointed out: as regards Mr. Mansel, it is still more glaring,\ninasmuch as that writer expressly states that he uses the term _absolute_\nin a different sense from that which Mr. Mill attributes to Sir W.\nHamilton. When Mr. Mill charges Mr. Mansel with \"undertaking to prove the\nimpossibility\" of conceiving \"a Being _absolutely_ just or _absolutely_\nwise\"[BF] (_i.e._, as he supposes, _perfectly_ just or wise), he\nactually forgets that he has just been criticising Mr. Hansel's\ndefinition of the Absolute, as something having a possible existence \"out\nof all relation.\" Will Mr. Mill have the kindness to tell us what he\nmeans by goodness and knowledge \"out of all relation;\" _i.e._, a goodness\nand knowledge related to no object on which they can be exercised; a\ngoodness which is good to nothing, a knowledge which knows nothing? Mr.\nMill had better be cautious in talking about _ignoratio elenchi_.\n\n [BF]  _Examination_, p. 95.\n\nFrom the Absolute, Mr. Mill proceeds to the Infinite; and here he commits\nthe same mistake as before, treating a portion of an argument as if it\nwere the whole, and citing a portion intended to prove one point as if it\nwere intended to prove another. He cites a passage from Mr. Mansel, in\nwhich it is said that \"the Infinite, if it is to be conceived at all,\nmust be conceived as potentially everything and actually nothing; for if\nthere is anything in general which it cannot become, it is thereby\nlimited; and if there is anything in particular which it actually is, it\nis thereby excluded from being any other thing. But, again, it must also\nbe conceived as actually everything and potentially nothing; for an\nunrealised potentiality is likewise a limitation. If the Infinite can be\nthat which it is not, it is by that very possibility marked out as\nincomplete, and capable of a higher perfection. If it is actually\neverything, it possesses no characteristic feature by which it can be\ndistinguished from anything else, and discerned as an object of\nconsciousness.\" On this passage Mr. Mill remarks, \"Can a writer be\nserious who bids us conjure up a conception of something which possesses\ninfinitely all conflicting attributes, and because we cannot do this\nwithout contradiction, would have us believe that there is a\ncontradiction in the idea of infinite goodness or infinite wisdom?\" The\nanswer to this criticism is very simple. The argument is not employed for\nthe purpose which Mr. Mill supposes. It is employed to show that the\nmetaphysical notion of the absolute-infinite, as the sum, potential or\nactual, of all possible existence, is inconceivable under the laws of\nhuman consciousness; and thus that the absolutely first existence,\nrelated to nothing and limited by nothing, the _ens realissimum_ of the\nolder philosophers, the _pure being_ of the Hegelians, cannot be attained\nas a starting-point from which to deduce all relative and derived\nexistence. How far the empirical conception of certain mental attributes,\nsuch as goodness or wisdom, derived in the first instance from our own\npersonal consciousness, can be positively conceived as extended to\ninfinity, is considered in a separate argument, which Mr. Mill does not\nnotice.\n\nMr. Mill continues, \"Instead of 'the Infinite,' substitute 'an infinitely\ngood Being' [_i.e._, substitute what is not intended], and Mr. Mansel's\nargument reads thus:--'If there is anything which an infinitely good\nBeing cannot become--if he cannot become bad--that is a limitation, and\nthe goodness cannot be infinite. If there is anything which an infinitely\ngood Being actually is (namely, good), he is excluded from being any\nother thing, as being wise or powerful.'\" To the first part of this\nobjection we reply by simply asking, \"Is becoming bad a 'higher\nperfection?'\" To the second part we reply by Mr. Mill's favourite mode of\nreasoning--a parallel case. A writer asserts that a creature which is a\nhorse is thereby excluded from being a dog; and that, in so far as it has\nthe nature of a horse, it has not the nature of a dog. \"What!\" exclaims\nMr. Mill, \"is it not the nature of a dog to have four legs? and does the\nman mean to say that a horse has not four legs?\" We venture respectfully\nto ask Mr. Mill whether he supposes that being wise is being \"a thing,\"\nand being good is being another \"thing?\"\n\nBut, seriously, it is much to be wished that when a writer like Mr. Mill\nundertakes to discuss philosophical questions, he should acquire some\nslight acquaintance with the history of the questions discussed. Had this\nbeen done by our critic in the present case, it might possibly have\noccurred to him to doubt whether a doctrine supported by philosophers of\nsuch different schools of thought as Spinoza, Malebranche, Wolf, Kant,\nSchelling, could be quite such a piece of transparent nonsense as he\nsupposes it to be. All these writers are cited in Mr. Mansel's note, as\nmaintaining the theory that the Absolute is the _ens realissimum_, or sum\nof all existence; and their names might have saved Mr. Mill from the\nabsurdity of supposing that by this expression was meant something\n\"absolutely good and absolutely bad; absolutely wise and absolutely\nstupid; and so forth.\" The real meaning of the expression has been\nalready sufficiently explained in our earlier remarks. The problem of the\nPhilosophy of the Unconditioned, as sketched by Plato and generally\nadopted by subsequent philosophers, is, as we have seen, to ascend up to\nthe first principle of all things, and thence to deduce, as from their\ncause, all dependent and derived existences. The Unconditioned, as the\none first principle, must necessarily contain in itself, potentially or\nactually, all that is derived from it, and thus must comprehend, in\nembryo or in development, the sum of all existence. To reconcile this\nconclusion with the phenomenal existence of evil and imperfection, is the\ndifficulty with which philosophy has had to struggle ever since\nphilosophy began. The Manichean, by referring evil to an independent\ncause, denies the existence of an absolute first principle at all; the\nLeibnitzian, with his hypothesis of the best possible world, virtually\nsets bounds to the Divine omnipotence: the Pantheist identifies God with\nall actual existence, and either denies the real existence of evil at\nall, or merges the distinction between evil and good in some higher\nindifference. All these conclusions may be alike untenable, but all alike\ntestify to the existence of the problem, and to the vast though\nunsuccessful efforts which man's reason has made to solve it.\n\nThe reader may now, perhaps, understand the reason of an assertion which\nMr. Mill regards as supremely absurd,--namely, that we must believe in\nthe existence of an absolute and infinite Being, though unable to\nconceive the nature of such a Being. To believe in such a Being, is\nsimply to believe that God made the world: to declare the nature of such\na Being inconceivable, is simply to say that we do not know how the world\nwas made. If we believe that God made the world, we must believe that\nthere was a time when the world was not, and when God alone existed, out\nof relation to any other being. But the mode of that sole existence we\nare unable to conceive, nor in what manner the first act took place by\nwhich the absolute and self-existent gave existence to the relative and\ndependent. \"The contradictions,\" says Mr. Mill, \"which Mr. Mansel asserts\nto be involved in the notions, do not follow from an imperfect mode of\napprehending the Infinite and the Absolute, but lie in the definitions of\nthem, in the meaning of the words themselves.\" They do no such thing: the\nmeaning of the words is perfectly intelligible, and is exactly what is\nexpressed by their definitions: the contradictions arise from the attempt\nto combine the attributes expressed by the words in one representation\nwith others, so as to form a positive object of consciousness. Where is\nthe incongruity of saying, \"I believe that a being exists possessing\ncertain attributes, though I am unable in my present state of knowledge\nto conceive the manner of that existence?\" Mr. Mill, at all events, is\nthe last man in the world who has any right to complain of such a\ndistinction--Mr. Mill, who considers it not incredible that in some part\nof the universe two straight lines may enclose a space, or two and two\nmake five; though he is compelled to allow that under our present laws of\nthought, or, if he pleases, of association, we are unable to conceive how\nthese things can be.\n\nIt is wearisome work to wade through this mass of misconceptions; yet we\nmust entreat the reader's patience a little longer, while we say a few\nwords in conclusion on perhaps the greatest misconception of all--though\nthat is bold language to use with regard to Mr. Mill's metaphysics,--at\nany rate, the one which he expresses in the most vehement language. Mr.\nMansel, as we have said, asserts, as many others have asserted before\nhim, that the relation between the communicable attributes of God and the\ncorresponding attributes of man is one not of identity, but of analogy;\nthat is to say, that the Divine attributes have the same relation to the\nDivine nature that the human attributes have to human nature. Thus, for\nexample, there is a Divine justice and there is a human justice; but God\nis just as the Creator and Governor of the world, having unlimited\nauthority over all His creatures and unlimited jurisdiction over all\ntheir acts; and man is just in certain special relations, as having\nauthority over some persons and some acts only, so far as is required for\nthe needs of human society. So, again, there is a Divine mercy and there\nis a human mercy; but God is merciful in such a manner as is fitting\ncompatibly with the righteous government of the universe; and man is\nmerciful in a certain limited range, the exercise of the attribute being\nguided by considerations affecting the welfare of society or of\nindividuals. Or to take a more general case: Man has in himself a rule of\nright and wrong, implying subjection to the authority of a superior (for\nconscience has authority only as reflecting the law of God); while God\nhas in Himself a rule of right and wrong, implying no higher authority,\nand determined absolutely by His own nature. The case is the same when we\nlook at moral attributes, not externally, in their active manifestations,\nbut internally, in their psychological constitution. If we do not\nattribute to God the same complex mental constitution of reason, passion,\nand will, the same relation to motives and inducements, the same\ndeliberation and choice of alternatives, the same temporal succession of\nfacts in consciousness, which we ascribe to man,--it will follow that\nthose psychological relations between reason, will, and desire, which are\nimplied in the conception of human action, cannot represent the Divine\nexcellences in themselves, but can only illustrate them by analogies from\nfinite things. And if man is liable to error in judging of the conduct of\nhis fellow-men, in proportion as he is unable to place himself in their\nposition, or to realise to himself their modes of thought and principles\nof action--if the child, for instance, is liable to error in judging the\nactions of the man,--or the savage of the civilised man,--surely there is\nfar more room for error in men's judgment of the ways of God, in\nproportion as the difference between God and man is greater than the\ndifference between a man and a child.\n\nThis doctrine elicits from Mr. Mill the following extraordinary outburst\nof rhetoric:--\n\n  \"If, instead of the glad tidings that there exists a Being in whom\n  all the excellences which the highest human mind can conceive,\n  exist in a degree inconceivable to us, I am informed that the world\n  is ruled by a being whose attributes are infinite, but what they\n  are we cannot learn, nor what are the principles of his government,\n  except that 'the highest human morality which we are capable of\n  conceiving' does not sanction them; convince me of it, and I will\n  bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I must believe this,\n  and at the same time call this being by the names which express and\n  affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain terms that I will\n  not. Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one\n  thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship him.\n  I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that\n  epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me\n  to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go.\"--(P. 103.)\n\nWe will not pause to comment on the temper and taste of this declamation;\nwe will simply ask whether Mr. Mill really supposes the word _good_ to\nlose all community of meaning, when it is applied, as it constantly is,\nto different persons among our \"fellow-creatures,\" with express reference\nto their different duties and different qualifications for performing\nthem? The duties of a father are not the same as those of a son; is the\nword therefore wholly equivocal when we speak of one person as a _good\nfather_, and another as a _good son_? Nay, when we speak generally of a\nman as _good_, has not the epithet a tacit reference to human nature and\nhuman duties? and yet is there no community of meaning when the same\nepithet is applied to other Creatures? [Greek: He arete pros to ergon\nto oikeion]--the goodness of any being whatever has relation to the\nnature and office of that being. We may therefore test Mr. Mill's\ndeclamation by a parallel case. A wise and experienced father addresses a\nyoung and inexperienced son: \"My son,\" he says, \"there may be some of my\nactions which do not seem to you to be wise or good, or such as you would\ndo in my place. Remember, however, that your duties are different from\nmine; that your knowledge of my duties is very imperfect; and that there\nmay be things which you cannot now see to be wise and good, but which you\nmay hereafter discover to be so.\" \"Father,\" says the son, \"your\nprinciples of action are not the same as mine; the highest morality which\nI can conceive at present does not sanction them; and as for believing\nthat you are good in anything of which I do not plainly see the\ngoodness,\"--We will not repeat Mr. Mill's alternative; we will only ask\nwhether it is not just possible that there may be as much difference\nbetween man and God as there is between a child and his father?\n\nThis declamation is followed by a sneer, which is worth quoting, not on\nits own account, but as an evidence of the generosity with which Mr. Mill\ndeals with the supposed motives of his antagonists, and of the accuracy\nof his acquaintance with the subject discussed. He says:--\n\n  \"It is worthy of remark, that the doubt whether words applied to\n  God have their human signification, is only felt when the words\n  relate to his moral attributes; it is never heard of with regard to\n  his power. We are never told that God's omnipotence must not be\n  supposed to mean an infinite degree of the power we know in man and\n  nature, and that perhaps it does not mean that he is able to kill\n  us, or consign us to eternal flames. The Divine Power is always\n  interpreted in a completely human signification; but the Divine\n  Goodness and Justice must be understood to be such only in an\n  unintelligible sense. Is it unfair to surmise that this is because\n  those who speak in the name of God, have need of the human\n  conception of his power, since an idea which can overawe and\n  enforce obedience must address itself to real feelings; but are\n  content that his goodness should be conceived only as something\n  inconceivable, because they are so often required to teach\n  doctrines respecting him which conflict irreconcilably with all\n  goodness that we can conceive?\"--(P. 104.)\n\nOn the latter part of this paragraph we will not attempt to comment. But\nas regards the former part, we meet Mr. Mill's confident assertion with a\ndirect denial, and take the opportunity of informing him that the\nconception of infinite Power has suggested the same difficulties; and has\nbeen discussed by philosophers and theologians in the same manner, as\nthose of infinite Wisdom and infinite Goodness. Has Mr. Mill never heard\nof such questions as, Whether Omnipotence can reverse the past?--Whether\nGod can do that which He does not will to do?--Whether God's perfect\nforeknowledge is compatible with his own perfect liberty?--Whether God\ncould have made a better world than the existing one? Nay, has not our\ncritic, in this very chapter, been arguing against Mr. Mansel on the\nquestion, whether the Absolute can be conceived as a Cause acting in\ntime: and what is this but a form of the question, whether power, when\npredicated of God is exactly the same thing as power when predicated of\nman? Or why has it been said that creation _ex nihilo_--an absolutely\nfirst act of causation, is inconceivable by us, but from the\nimpossibility of finding in human power an exact type of Divine power? To\nattribute discreditable motives to an opponent, even to account for\nunquestionable facts, is usually considered as an abuse of criticism.\nWhat shall we say when the facts are fictitious as well as the motives?\nWith regard to Mr. Mansel, the only person who is included by name in\nthis accusation, it is \"worthy of remark,\" that the earliest mention of\nthe obnoxious theory in his writings occurs in connection with a\ndifficulty relating solely to the conception of infinite power, and not\nat all to the moral attributes of God.[BG]\n\n [BG]  See _Prolegomena Logica_, p. 77 (2nd ed., p. 85.)\n\nMr. Mill concludes this chapter with another instance of that _ignoratio\nelenchi_ which has been so abundantly manifested throughout his previous\ncriticisms. His opponent, he allows, \"would and does admit that the\nqualities as conceived by us bear _some likeness_ to the justice and\ngoodness which belong to God, since man was made in God's image.\" But he\nconsiders that this \"semi-concession\" \"destroys the whole fabric\" of Mr.\nMansel's argument. \"The Divine goodness,\" he says, \"which is said to be a\ndifferent thing from human goodness, but of which the human conception of\ngoodness is some imperfect reflexion or resemblance, does it agree with\nwhat men call goodness in the _essence_ of the quality--in what\n_constitutes_ it goodness? If it does, the 'Rationalists' are right; it\nis not illicit to reason from the one to the other. If not, the divine\nattribute, whatever else it may be, is not goodness, and ought not to be\ncalled by the name.\" Now the question really at issue is not whether the\n\"Rationalist\" argument is licit or illicit, but whether, in its lawful\nuse, it is to be regarded as infallible or fallible. We have already\nquoted a portion of Mr. Mansel's language on this point; we will now\nquote two more passages, which, without any comment, will sufficiently\nshow how utterly Mr. Mill has mistaken the purport of the argument which\nhe has undertaken to examine.\n\n  \"We do not certainly know the exact nature and operation of the\n  moral attributes of God: we can but infer and conjecture from what\n  we know of the moral attributes of man: and the analogy between the\n  Finite and the Infinite can never be so perfect as to preclude all\n  possibility of error in the process. But the possibility becomes\n  almost a certainty, when any one human faculty is elevated by\n  itself into an authoritative criterion of religious truth, without\n  regard to those collateral evidences by which its decisions may be\n  modified and corrected.\"[BH]... \"Beyond question, every doubt\n  which our reason may suggest in matters of religion is entitled to\n  its due place in the examination of the evidences of religion; if\n  we will treat it as a part only, and not the whole; if we will not\n  insist on a positive solution of that which, it may be, is given us\n  for another purpose than to be solved. It is reasonable to believe\n  that, in matters of belief as well as of practice, God has not\n  thought fit to annihilate the free will of man, but has permitted\n  speculative difficulties to exist as the trial and the discipline\n  of sharp and subtle intellects, as He has permitted moral\n  temptations to form the trial and the discipline of strong and\n  eager passions.... We do not doubt that the conditions of our moral\n  trial tend towards good, and not towards evil; that human nature,\n  even in its fallen state, bears traces of the image of its Maker,\n  and is fitted to be an instrument in His moral government. And we\n  believe this, notwithstanding the existence of passions and\n  appetites which, isolated and uncontrolled, appear to lead in an\n  opposite direction. Is it then more reasonable to deny that a\n  system of revealed religion, whose unquestionable tendency as a\n  whole is to promote the glory of God and the welfare of mankind,\n  can have proceeded from the same Author, merely because we may be\n  unable to detect the same character in some of its minuter\n  features, viewed apart from the system to which they\n  belong?\"[BI]\n\n [BH]  _Bampton Lectures_, p. 157, Fourth Edition.\n\n [BI]  _Bampton Lectures_, p. 166, Fourth Edition.\n\nSurely this is very different from denouncing all reasoning from human\ngoodness to Divine as \"illicit.\" To take a parallel case. The manufacture\nof gunpowder is a dangerous process, and, if carried on without due\nprecautions, is very likely to lead to disastrous consequences. Surely it\nis one thing to point out what precautions are necessary, and what evils\nare to be apprehended from the neglect of them, and another to forbid the\nmanufacture altogether. Mr. Mill does not seem to see the difference.\n\nWe have now considered in detail all that part of Mr. Mill's book which\nis devoted to the examination of Sir W. Hamilton's chief and most\ncharacteristic doctrines--those which constitute the Philosophy of the\nConditioned. The remainder of the work, which deals chiefly with\nsubordinate questions of psychology and logic, contains much from which\nwe widely dissent, but which we cannot at present submit to a special\nexamination. Nor is it necessary, so far as Sir W. Hamilton's reputation\nis concerned, that we should do so. If the Philosophy of the Conditioned\nis really nothing better than the mass of crudities and blunders which\nMr. Mill supposes it to be, the warmest admirers of Hamilton will do\nlittle in his behalf, even should they succeed in vindicating some of the\nminor details of his teaching. If, on the other hand, it can be shown, as\nwe have attempted to show, that Mr. Mill is utterly incapable of dealing\nwith Hamilton's philosophy in its higher branches, his readers may be\nleft to judge for themselves whether he is implicitly to be trusted as\nregards the lower. In point of fact, they will do Mr. Mill no injustice,\nif they regard the above specimens as samples of his entire criticism. We\ngladly except, as of a far higher order, those chapters in which he is\ncontent with stating his own views; but in the perpetual baiting of Sir\nW. Hamilton, which occupies the greater part of the volume, we recognise,\nin general, the same captiousness and the same incompetence which we have\nso often had occasion to point out in the course of our previous\nremarks.\n\nIt is, we confess, an unpleasant and an invidious task, to pick to\npieces, bit by bit, the work of an author of high reputation. But Mr.\nMill has chosen to put the question on this issue, and he has left those\nwho dissent from him no alternative but to follow his example. He has\ntasked all the resources of minute criticism to destroy piece-meal the\nreputation of one who has hitherto borne an honoured name in philosophy:\nhe has no right to complain if the same measure is meted to himself:--\n\n                  \"Neque enim lex aequior ulla\n                Quam necis artifices arte perire sua.\"\n\nBut it is not so much the justice as the necessity of the case which we\nwould plead as our excuse. Mr. Mill's method of criticism has reduced the\nquestion to a very narrow compass. Either Sir W. Hamilton, instead of\nbeing a great philosopher, is the veriest blunderer that ever put pen to\npaper, or the blunders are Mr. Mill's own. To those who accept the first\nof these alternatives it must always remain a marvel how Sir W. Hamilton\ncould ever have acquired that reputation which compels even his critic to\nadmit that \"he alone, of our metaphysicians of this and the preceding\ngeneration, has acquired, merely as such, an European celebrity;\" how he\ncould have been designated by his illustrious opponent, Cousin, as the\n\"greatest critic of our age,\" or described by the learned Brandis as\n\"almost unparalleled in the profound knowledge of ancient and modern\nphilosophy.\" The marvel may perhaps disappear, should it be the case, as\nwe believe it to be, that the second alternative is the true one.\n\nBut even in this case, it should be borne in mind that the blow will by\nno means fall on Mr. Mill with the same weight with which he designed it\nto fall on the object of his criticism. Sir W. Hamilton had devoted his\nwhole life to the study of metaphysics; he was probably more deeply read\nin that study than any of his contemporaries; and if all his reading\ncould produce nothing better than the confusion and self-contradiction\nwhich Mr. Mill imputes to him, the result would be pitiable indeed. Mr.\nMill, on the other hand, we strongly suspect, despises metaphysics too\nmuch to be at the pains of studying them at all, and seems to think that\na critic is duly equipped for his task with that amount of knowledge\nwhich, like Dogberry's reading and writing, \"comes by nature.\" His work\nhas a superficial cleverness which, together with the author's previous\nreputation, will insure it a certain kind of popularity; but we venture\nto predict that its estimation by its readers will be in the inverse\nratio to their knowledge of the subject. But Mr. Mill's general\nreputation rests on grounds quite distinct from his performances in\nmetaphysics; and though we could hardly name one of his writings from\nwhose main principles we do not dissent, there is hardly one which is not\nbetter fitted to sustain his character as a thinker than this last, in\nwhich the fatal charms of the goddess Necessity seem to have betrayed her\nchampion into an unusual excess of polemical zeal, coupled, it must be\nadded, with an unusual deficiency of philosophical knowledge.\n\n\n\n\nPOSTSCRIPT.\n\n\nIt was not till after the preceding pages had been sent to press that I\nbecame acquainted with a little work recently published under the title\nof _The Battle of the two Philosophies, by an Inquirer_. The author\nappears to have been a personal pupil of Sir W. Hamilton's, as well as a\ndiligent student of his writings. At all events, he has \"inquired\" to\nsome purpose, and obtained a far more intelligent knowledge of Hamilton's\nsystem than is exhibited by the majority of recent critics. It is\ngratifying to find many of my remarks confirmed by the concurrent\ntestimony of so competent a witness. The following would have been\nnoticed in their proper places had I been sooner acquainted with them.\n\nOf the popular confusion between the _infinite_ and the _indefinite_,\nnoticed above, pp. 50, 112, \"An Inquirer\" observes:--\n\n\"If we could realise in thought infinite space, that conception would be\na perfectly definite one; but the notion that is here offered us in its\nplace, though it may be real, is certainly not definite; it is merely the\nconception of an indefinite extension.... In truth, when we strive to\nthink of infinite space, the nearest approach we can make to it is this\nnotion of an indefinite space, which Mr. Mill has substituted for it. But\nthese two conceptions are not only verbally, they are really wholly\ndistinct. An indefinite space is a space of the extent of which we think\nvaguely, without knowing or without thinking where its boundaries are.\nInfinite space has certainly, and quite distinctly, no boundaries\nanywhere.\"--(Pp. 18-20.)\n\nOn Mr. Mill's strange distinction between the Divine Attributes, as some\ninfinite and others absolute, the author's remarks are substantially in\nagreement with what has been said above on pp. 105-6.\n\n\"Mr. Mill argues that all the attributes of God cannot be infinite; but\nthat some, as power, may be infinite; and some, as goodness and\nknowledge, must be absolute, because neither can knowledge be more than\ncomplete, nor goodness more than perfect. When we know all there is to be\nknown, he says, knowledge has attained its utmost limit. But this is\nmerely begging the whole question. If there be an Infinite Being, He\ncannot know all there is to be known unless He know Himself; and\nadequately to know what is infinite is to have infinite knowledge. The\nsame thing would be true if there could be a Being whose power and\nduration only were infinite. 'The will,' he adds, 'is either entirely\nright, or wrong in different degrees: downwards there are as many\ngradations as we choose to distinguish; but upwards there is an ideal\nlimit. Goodness can be imagined complete,--such that there can be no\ngreater goodness beyond it,'... But a Being of infinite power and finite\ngoodness would not be perfectly good, because His power would not be\nwholly, but only in part directed by His goodness. Nay, as that which is\nfinite bears no proportion whatever to what is infinite: as, however\ngreat it be absolutely, it is still infinitely less than infinity, such a\nBeing would be partly good and yet infinitely evil, which is absurd in\nreason and impossible in fact.\"--(Pp. 24, 25.)\n\nThe following estimate of Mr. Mill's merits as a metaphysician coincides\nwith that which, contrary to my expectation, I found forced upon myself\nafter a careful examination of his book.--(See above, Pp. 62, 182.)\n\n\"We cannot but think that Mr. Mill in this, his first work in pure\nmetaphysics, has disappointed just expectation. In leaving the fields of\npractical philosophy, he seems to have left his genius behind him. Even\nthe peculiar 'cunning of his right hand'--even his unexcelled logical\npower avails him little, so continually does he fail to see distinctly\nthe conception with which he is fencing.... As long as he is applying\ngiven principles to the solution of practical questions; as long as he\nhas to do with the process of an argument, he proves himself a most able\ninstructor and guide. But when he has to grapple with a metaphysical\nproblem, it almost invariably arrives that the central, the metaphysical\ndifficulty, escapes him.\"--(Pp. 78-80.)\n\n\n\n\n               MUIR AND PATERSON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.","title":"The Philosophy of the Conditioned","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":29376}