Know the Truth; A critique of the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation Part 3

It can add no item to the sum of human knowledge, except as it deduces it from a presentation by the Sense. Hence its conditions correspond to those in its a.s.sociate faculty.

It is manifest, then, that a being with only these faculties may construct a _system_, but can never develop a _science_. It can arrange, cla.s.sify, by such standards as its fancy may select, the phenomena in nature; but this must be in accordance with some sensuous form. _No law can be seen_, by which it ought to be so, and not otherwise. Such cla.s.sification must always be determined by the number of stamens in the flower, for instance; and that standard, though arbitrary, will be as good as any other, _unless there comes a higher faculty_ which, overlooking all nature, perceives the _a priori_ law working in nature, which gives the ultimate ground for an exhaustive development of a science which in its _idea_ cannot be improved. It is manifest, further, that those conditions, to which we have applied the epithet proper, lie upon the two faculties we have been considering. In this we agree with the Limitists.

It now behooves to present the fact that the faculty whose existence was proved in the earlier part of our work, is competent to overlook, and so comprehend nature, and all the conditions of nature, and thereby a.s.sign to said conditions their true and inferior place, while it soars out of nature, and intuits those _a priori_ laws which, though the conditions of, are wholly unconditioned _by nature_; but which are both the conditions of and conditioned by the supernatural; and this in an entirely different sense from the other. This is the province of the Pure Reason. Standing on some lofty peak, above all clouds of sense, under the full blaze of eternal truth, the soul sees all nature spread like a vast map before her searching eye, sharply observes, and appreciates all the conditions of nature; and then, while holding it full in the field of her vision, with equal fulness perceives that other land, the spiritual plains of the supernatural, sees them too in all their conditionings; and sees, with a clearness of vision never approximated by the earthly eye, the fact that these supernatural conditions are no deprivation which awaken a want, but that they inhere and cohere, as final ground for absolute plenitude of endowments and fulness of bliss, in the Self-existent Person.

It will be objected to the position now attained, that it involves the doctrine that the Pure Reason in the finite spiritual person is on a par with the Universal Genius in the infinite spiritual Person. The objection is fallacious, because based upon the a.s.sumption that likeness in mode of action involves entire similarity. The mode of action in the finite Pure Reason is precisely similar to that of the Universal Genius; the objects perceived by both are the same, they are seen in the same light, and so are in accord; but the _range_ of the finite is one, and the _range_ of the infinite is another; and so diverse also are the circ.u.mstances attending the act of seeing. The range of the finite Reason is, _always must be, partial_: the range of the infinite Reason is, _always must be, exhaustive_ (not infinite). In circ.u.mstances, the finite Reason is created dependent for existence, must begin in a germ in which it is inactive, and _must_ be developed by a.s.sociation with nature, and under forms of nature; and can never, by any possibility of growth, attain to that perfectness in which it shall be satisfied, or to a point in development from which it can continue its advance as _pure spirit_. It always must be spirit in a body; even though that be a spiritual body. The infinite Reason is self-existent, and therefore independent; and is, and always must be, in the absolute possession of all possible knowledge, and so cannot grow. Hence, while the infinite and finite reasons see the same object in the same light, and therefore _alike_, the difference in range, and the difference in circ.u.mstance, must forever const.i.tute them dissimilar. The exact likeness of sight just noticed is the _necessary a priori_ ground upon which a moral government is _possible_.

In thus declaring the basis upon which the above distinction between the two cla.s.ses of conditions rests, we have been led to distinguish more clearly between the faculties of the mind, and especially to observe how the Pure Reason enables us thereby to solve the problems she has raised.

In this radical distinction lies the rational ground for the explication of all the problems which the Limitists raise. It also appears that the terms must, possible, and the like, being used to express no idea of restraint, as coming from without upon the infinite Person, or of lack or craving, as subsisting within him, are properly employed in expressing the fact that his _Self, as a priori ground for his activity_, is, though the only, yet a real, positive, and irremovable limit, condition, and law of his action. Of two possible ends he may freely choose either. Of all possible modes of action he may choose one; but the const.i.tuting laws of the Self he _cannot_, and the moral laws of his Self he _will not_, violate.

That point has now been reached at which this branch of the discussion in hand may be closed. The final base from which to conduct an examination of the questions respecting absoluteness and infinity has been attained. In the progress to this consummation it was found that a radical psychological error lay at the root of the philosophy taught by the Limitists. Their theory was seen to be partial, and essentially defective. Qualities which they do not recognise were found to belong to certain mental affirmations. Four cla.s.ses of these affirmations or ideas were named and ill.u.s.trated; and by them the fact of the Reason was established. Then its mode of activity and its functions were stated; and finally the great truth which solves the problem of the ages was, by this faculty, attained and stated. It became evident that the final cause of the Universe must be found without the Universe; and it was then seen that

That spiritual Person who is self-existent, absolute, and infinite, is the Ultimate Ground, the Final Cause, of the Universe.

Definitions of the terms absolute and infinite suitable to such a position were then given, with a few concluding reflections. From the result thus secured the way is prepared for an examination of the general principles and their special applications which the Limitists maintain, and this will occupy our future pages.

PART II.

AN EXAMINATION OF THE FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITION OF THE LIMITISTS, AND OF CERTAIN GENERAL COROLLARIES UNDER IT.

It has been attempted in the former pages to find a valid and final basis of truth, one which would satisfy the cravings of the human soul, and afford it a sure rest. In the fact that G.o.d made man in his own image, and that thus there is, _to a certain extent_, a community of faculties, a community of knowledge, a community of obligations, and a community of interests, have we found such a basis. We have hereby learned that a part of man's knowledge is necessary and final; in other words, that he can know the truth, and be sure that his knowledge is correct. If the proofs which have been offered of the fact of the Pure Reason, and the statements which have been made of the mode of its activity and of its functions, and, further, of the problem of the Universe, and the true method for solving it, shall have been satisfactory to the reader, he will now be ready to consider the a.n.a.lysis of Sir William Hamilton's fundamental proposition, which was promised on an early page. We there gave, it was thought, sufficiently full extracts for a fair presentation of his theory, and followed them with a candid epitome. In recurring to the subject now, and for the purpose named, we are constrained at the outset to make an acknowledgment.

It would be simple folly, a childish egotism, to pa.s.s by in silence the masterly article on this subject in the "North American Review" for October, 1864, and after it to pretend to offer anything new. Whatever the author might have wrought out in his own mental workshop,--and his work was far less able than what is there given,--that article has left nothing to be said. He has therefore been tempted to one of two courses: either to transfer it to these pages, or pa.s.s by the subject entirely.

Either course may, perhaps, be better than the one finally chosen; which is, while pursuing the order of his own thought, to add a few short extracts therefrom. One possibility encourages him in this, which is, that some persons may see this volume, who have no access to the Review, and to whom, therefore, these pages will be valuable. To save needless repet.i.tion, this discussion will presuppose that the reader has turned back and perused the extracts and epitome above alluded to.

Upon the very threshold of Sir William Hamilton's statement, one is met by a logical _faux pas_ which is truly amazing. Immediately after the a.s.sertion that "the mind can know only the _limited and the conditionally limited_," and in the very sentence in which he denies the possibility of a knowledge of the Infinite and Absolute, _he proceeds to define those words in definite and known terms_! The Infinite he defines as "the unconditionally unlimited," and the Absolute as "the unconditionally limited." Or, to save him, will one say that the defining terms are unknown? So much the worse, then! "The Infinite," an unknown term, may be represented by _x_; and the unconditionally unlimited, a compound unknown term, by _ab_. Now, who has the right to say, either in mathematics or metaphysics, in any philosophy, that _x_=_ab_? Yet such dicta are the basis of "The Philosophy of the Unconditioned." But, one of two suppositions is possible. Either the terms infinite and absolute are known terms and definable, or they are unknown terms and undefinable. Yet, Hamilton says, they are unknown and definable. Which does he mean? If he is held to the former, they are unknown; then all else that he has written about them are batches of meaningless words. If he is held to the latter, they are definable; then are they known, and his system is denied in the a.s.sertion of it.

Since his words are so contradictory, he must be judged by his deeds; and in these he always a.s.sumes that we have a positive knowledge of the infinite and absolute, else he would not have argued the matter; for there can be no argument about nothing. Our a.n.a.lysis of his theory, then, must be conducted upon this hypothesis.

Turn back for a moment to the page upon which his theory is quoted, and read the last sentence. Is his utterance a "principle," or is it a judgment? Is it an axiom, or is it a guess. The logician a.s.serts that we know only the conditioned, and yet bases his a.s.sertion upon "the principles," &c. What is a principle, and how is it known? If it is axiom, then he has denied his own philosophy in the very sentence in which he uttered it. And this, we have no hesitation in saying, is just what he did. He blindly a.s.sumed certain "fundamental laws of thought,"--to quote another of his phrases--to establish the impotence of the mind to know those laws _as fundamental_. Again, if his philosophy is valid, the words "must," "necessary," and the like are entirely out of place; for they are unconditional. In the conditioned there is, can be, no must, no necessity.

From these excursions about the principle let us now return to the principle itself. It may be stated concisely thus: There are two extremes,--"the Absolute" and the "Infinite." These include all being.

They are contradictories, that is, one must be, to the exclusion of the other. But the mind can "conceive" of neither. What, then, is the logical conclusion? _That the mind cannot conceive of anything._ What is his conclusion? That the mind can conceive of something between the infinite and the absolute, which is neither the one nor the other, but a _tertium quid_--the conditioned. Where did this _tertium quid_ come from, when he had already comprehended everything in the two extremes?

If there is a mean, the conditioned, and the two extremes, then "excluded middle" has nothing to do with the matter at all.

To avoid the inevitable conclusion of his logic as just stated, Hamilton erected the subterfuge of _mental imbecility_. To deny any knowledge to man, was to expose himself to ridicule. He, therefore, and his followers after him, drew a line in the domain of knowledge, and a.s.signed to the hither side of it all knowledge that can come through generalizations in the Understanding; and then a.s.serted that the contradictions which appeared in the mind, when one examined those questions which lie on the further side of that line, resulted from the impotency of the mind to comprehend the questions themselves. This was, is, their psychology. How satisfactory it may be to Man, a hundred years, perhaps, will show. But strike out the last a.s.sertion, and write, Both are cognizable; and then let us proceed with our reasoning. The essayist in the North American presents the theory under four heads, as follows:--

"1. The Infinite and Absolute as defined, are contradictory and exclusive of each other; yet, one must be true.

"2. Neither of them can be conceived as possible.

"3. Each is inconceivable; and the inconceivability of each is referable to the same cause, namely, mental imbecility.

"4. As opposite extremes, they include everything conceivable between them."

The first and fourth points require our especial attention.

1. Let us particularly mark, then, that it is _as defined_, that the terms are "contradictory." The question, therefore, turns upon the definitions. Undoubtedly the definitions are erroneous; but in order to see wherein, the following general reflections may be made:--

The terms infinite and absolute, as used by philosophers, have two distinct applications: one to s.p.a.ce and Time, and one to G.o.d. Such definitions as are suitable to the latter application, and self-consistent, have already been given. Though reluctant to admit into a philosophical treatise a term bearing two distinct meanings, we shall waive for a little our scruples,--though choosing, for ourselves, to use the equivalent rather than the term.

Such definitions are needed, then, as that absolute s.p.a.ce and Time shall not be contradictory to infinite s.p.a.ce and Time. Let us first observe Hamilton's theory. According to it, s.p.a.ce, for instance, is either unconditional illimitation, or it is unconditional limitation; in other words, it is illimitable, or it is a limited whole. The first part of the a.s.sertion is true. That s.p.a.ce is illimitable, is unquestionably a self-evident truth. Any one who candidly considers the subject will see not only that the mind cannot a.s.sign limits to s.p.a.ce, but that the attempt is an absurdity just alike in kind with the attempt to think two and two five. The last part is a psychological blunder, has no pertinence to the question, and is not what Hamilton was groping for. He was searching for the truth, that _there is no absolute unit in s.p.a.ce_. A limited whole has nothing to do with the matter in hand--absoluteness--at all. The illimitability of s.p.a.ce, which has just been established as an axiom, precludes this. What, then, is the opposite pole of thought? We have just declared it. There is no absolute unit of s.p.a.ce; or, in other words, all division is in s.p.a.ce, but s.p.a.ce is indivisible. This, also, is an axiom, is self-evident. We attain, then, two poles of thought, and definitions of the two terms given, which are exhaustive and consistent.

"s.p.a.ce is illimitable.

s.p.a.ce is indivisible."

The one is the infinity of s.p.a.ce, the other is the absoluteness of s.p.a.ce. The fact, then, is, all limitation is _in_ s.p.a.ce, and all division is _in_ s.p.a.ce; but s.p.a.ce is neither limited or divided. One of the logician's extremes is seen, then, to have no foundation in fact; and that which is found to be true is also found to be consistent with, nay, essential to, what should have been the other.

Having hitherto expressed a decided protest against any attempt to find out G.o.d through the forms of s.p.a.ce and Time, a repet.i.tion will not be needed here. G.o.d is only to be sought for, found, and studied, by such methods as are suitable to the supreme spiritual Person. Hence all the attempts of the Limitists to reason from spatial and temporal difficulties over to those questions which belong to G.o.d, are simply absurd. The questions respecting s.p.a.ce and Time are to be discussed by themselves. And the questions respecting G.o.d are to be discussed by themselves. He who tries to reason from the one to the other is not less absurd than he who should try to reason from a farm to the multiplication table.

In Sir William Hamilton's behalf it should be stated, that there is just a modic.u.m of truth underlying his theory,--just enough to give it a degree of plausibility. The Sense, as faculty for the perception of physical objects, or their images, and the Understanding as discursive faculty for pa.s.sing over and forming judgments upon the materials gathered by the Sense, lie under the shadow of a law very like the one he stated. The Sense was made _incapable_ of perceiving an ultimate atom or of comprehending the universe. From the fact that the Sense never has perceived these objects, the Understanding concludes that it never will.

Only by the insight and oversight of that higher faculty, the Pure Reason, do we come to know that it never _can_. It was because those lower faculties are thus walled in by the conditions of s.p.a.ce and Time, and are unable to perceive or conceive anything out of those conditions, and because, in considering them, he failed to see the other mental powers, that Sir William Hamilton constructed his Philosophy of the Unconditioned.

2. Neither of them can be conceived as possible.

Literally, this is true. The word "conceive" applies strictly to the work of the Understanding; and that faculty can never have any notion of the Infinite or Absolute. But, a.s.suming that "conceive" is a general term for cognize, the conclusion developed just above is inevitable. If all being is in one or the other, and neither can be known, nothing can be known.

3. They cannot be known, because of mental imbecility. If man can know nothing because of mental imbecility, why suppose that he has a mental faculty at all? Why not enounce, as the fundamental principle of one's theory, the a.s.sertion, All men are idiots? This would be logically consistent. The truth is, the logician was in a dilemma. He must confess that men know something. By a false psychology he had ruled the Reason out of the mind, and so had left himself no faculty by which to form any notion of absoluteness and infinity; and yet they would thrust themselves before him, and demand an explanation. Hence, he constructed a subterfuge. He would have been more consistent if he had said, There is no absolute and infinite. The conditioned is the whole of existence; and this the mind knows.

"4. As opposite extremes, they include everything conceivable between them."

What the essayist in the North American says upon this point is so apt, and so accords with our own previous reflections, that we will not forbear making an extract. "The last of the four theses will best be re-stated in Hamilton's own words; the italics are his. 'The conditioned is the mean between two extremes--two inconditionates, exclusive of each other, neither of which _can be conceived as possible_, but of which, on the principles of contradiction and excluded middle, one _must be admitted as necessary_.' This sentence excites unmixed wonder. To mention in the same breath the law of excluded middle, and two contradictions with a mean between them, requires a hardihood unparalleled in the history of philosophy, except by Hegel. If the two contradictory extremes are themselves incogitable, yet include a cogitable mean, why insist upon the necessity of accepting either extreme? This necessity of accepting one of two contradictories is wholly based upon the supposed impossibility of a mean; if the mean exists, that may be true, and both the contradictories false. But if a mean between the two contradictories be both impossible and absurd, (and we have hitherto so interpreted the law of excluded middle,) Hamilton's conditioned entirely vanishes."

Upon a system which, in whatever aspect one looks at it, is found to be but a bundle of contradictions and absurdities, further criticism would appear to be unnecessary.

Having, impliedly at least, accepted as true Sir William Hamilton's psychological error,--the rejection of the Reason as the intellectual faculty of the spiritual person,--and having, with him, used the terms limit, condition, and the like, in such significations as are pertinent to the Sense and Understanding only, the Limitists proceed to present in a paradoxical light many questions which arise concerning "the Infinite." They take the ground that, to our view, he can be neither person, nor intellect, nor consciousness; for each of these implies limitation; and yet that it is impossible for us to know aught of him, except as such. Then having, as they think, completely confused the mind, they draw hence new support for their conclusion, that we can attain to no satisfactory knowledge on the subject. The following extracts selected from many will show this.

"Now, in the first place, the very conception of Consciousness, in whatever mode it may be manifested, necessarily implies distinction between one object and another. To be conscious, we must be conscious of something; and that something can only be known as that which it is, by being distinguished from that which it is not. But distinction is necessarily a limitation; for, if one object is to be distinguished from another, it must possess some form of existence which the other has not, or it must not possess some form which the other has. But it is obvious that the Infinite cannot be distinguished, as such, from the Finite, by the absence of any quality which the Finite possesses; for such absence would be a limitation. Nor yet can it be distinguished by the presence of an attribute which the Finite has not; for as no finite part can be a const.i.tuent of an infinite whole, this differential characteristic must itself be infinite; and must at the same time have nothing in common with the finite....

"That a man can be conscious of the Infinite, is thus a supposition which, in the very terms in which it is expressed, annihilates itself.

Consciousness is essentially a limitation; for it is the determination of the mind to one actual out of many possible modifications. But the Infinite, if it is conceived at all, must be conceived as potentially everything, and actually nothing; for if there is anything in general which it cannot become, it is thereby limited; and if there is anything in particular which it actually is, it is thereby excluded from being any other thing. But again, it must also be conceived as actually everything, and potentially nothing; for an unrealized potentiality is likewise a limitation. If the infinite can be that which it is not, it is by that very possibility marked out as incomplete, and capable of a higher perfection. If it is actually everything, it possesses no characteristic feature by which it can be distinguished from anything else, and discerned as an object of consciousness....

"Rationalism is thus only consistent with itself when it refuses to attribute consciousness to G.o.d. Consciousness, in the only form in which we can conceive it, implies limitation and change,--the perception of one object out of many, and a comparison of that object with others. To he always conscious of the same object, is, humanly speaking, not to be conscious at all; and, beyond its human manifestation, we can have no conception of what consciousness is."--_Limits of Religious Thought_, pp. 93-95.

"As the conditionally limited (which we may briefly call the conditioned) is thus the only possible object of knowledge and of positive thought--thought necessarily supposes conditions. To _think_ is to _condition_; and conditional limitation is the fundamental law of the possibility of thought....

"Thought cannot transcend consciousness; consciousness is only possible under the ant.i.thesis of a subject and object of thought; known only in correlation, and mutually limiting each other; while, independently of this, all that we know either of subject or object, either of mind or matter, is only a knowledge in each of the particular, of the plural, of the different, of the modified, of the phenomenal. We admit that the consequence of this doctrine is--that philosophy, if viewed as more than a science of the conditioned, is impossible. Departing from the particular, we admit that we can never, in out highest generalizations, rise above the finite; that our knowledge, whether of mind or matter, can be nothing more than a knowledge of the relative manifestations of an existence, which in itself it is our highest wisdom to recognize as beyond the reach of philosophy."

"In all this, so far as human intelligence is concerned, we cordially agree; for a more complete admission could not be imagined, not only that a knowledge, and even a notion, of the absolute is impossible for man, but that we are unable to conceive the possibility of such a knowledge even in the Deity himself, without contradicting our human conceptions of the possibility of intelligence itself."--_Sir William Hamilton's Essays_, pp. 21, 22, 38.

"The various mental attributes which we ascribe to G.o.d--Benevolence, Holiness, Justice, Wisdom, for example--can be conceived by us only as existing in a benevolent and holy and just and wise Being, who is not identical with any one of his attributes, but the common subject of them all; in one word, a _Person_. But Personality, as we conceive it, is essentially a limitation and relation. Our own personality is presented to us as relative and limited; and it is from that presentation that all our representative notions of personality are derived. Personality is presented to us as a relation between the conscious self and the various modes of his consciousness. There is no personality in abstract thought without a thinker: there is no thinker unless he exercises some mode of thought. Personality is also a limitation; for the thought and the thinker are distinguished from and limit each other; and the various modes of thought are distinguished each from each by limitation likewise...."--_Limits of Religious Thought_, p. 102.

"Personality, with all its limitations, though far from exhibiting the absolute nature of G.o.d as He is, is yet truer, grander, more elevating, more religious, than those barren, vague, meaningless abstractions in which men babble about nothing under the name of the Infinite and Personal conscious existence, limited though it be, is yet the n.o.blest of all existence of which man can dream.... It is by consciousness alone that we know that G.o.d exists, or that we are able to offer Him any service. It is only by conceiving Him as a Conscious Being, that we can stand in any religious relation to Him at all; that we can form such a representation of Him as is demanded by our spiritual wants, insufficient though it be to satisfy our intellectual curiosity."--_Limits of Religious Thought_, p. 104.

The conclusions of these writers upon this whole topic are as follows:--