Know the Truth; A critique of the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation Part 7

"ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS."

The summing up of certain reflections with which this chapter opens, concludes thus: "But that when our symbolic conceptions are such that no c.u.mulative or indirect processes of thought can enable us to ascertain that there are corresponding actualities, nor any predictions be made whose fulfilment can prove this, then they are altogether vicious and illusive, and in no way distinguishable from pure fictions,"--p. 29. So far very good; but his use of it is utterly unsound. "And now to consider the bearings of this general truth on our immediate topic--Ultimate Religious Ideas." But this "general truth" has _no_ bearings upon "ultimate religious ideas"; how then can you consider them? _No_ ideas, and most of all religious ideas, are conceptions, or the results of conceptions--or are the products of "c.u.mulative or indirect processes of thought." They are not results or products _at all_. They are organic, are the spontaneous presentation of what is inborn, and so must be directly seen to be known at all. Man might pile up "c.u.mulative processes of thought" for unnumbered ages, and might form most exact conceptions of objects of Sense,--conceptions are not possible of others,--and he could never creep up to the least and faintest religious idea.

On the next page, speaking of "suppositions respecting the origin of the Universe," Mr. Spencer says, "The deeper question is, whether any one of them is even conceivable in the true sense of that word. Let us successively test them." This is not necessary. It has already been _demonstrated_ that a conception, or any effort of the Understanding, cannot touch, or have relation to such topics. But it does not follow, therefore, that no one of them is cognizable at all; which he implies.

Take the abstract notion of self-existence, for example. No "vague symbolic conceptions," or any conception at all, of it _can be formed_.

A conception is possible only "under relation, difference, and plurality." _This_ is a pure, simple idea, and so can only be known in itself by a seeing--an immediate intuition. It is seen by itself, as out of all relation. It is seen as simple, and so is learned by no difference. It is seen as a unit, and so out of all plurality. The discursive faculty cannot pa.s.s over it, because there are in it no various points upon which that faculty may fasten. It may, perhaps, better be expressed by the words pure independence. Again, it is _not_ properly "existence without a beginning," but rather, existence out of all relation to beginning; and so it is an idea, out of all relation to those faculties which are confined to objects that did begin. Because we can "by no mental effort" "form a conception of existence without a beginning," it does not follow that we cannot _see_ that a Being existing out of all relation to beginning _is_. "To this let us add"

that the intuition of such a Being is a complete "explanation of the Universe," and does make it "easier to understand" "that it existed an hour ago, a day ago, a year ago"; for we see that this Being primarily is _out of all relation to time_, that there is no such thing as an "infinite period," the phrase being absurd; but that through all the procession of events which we call time he _is_; and that before that procession began--when there was no time, he was. Thus we see that all events are based upon Him who is independent; and that time, in our general use of it, is but the measure of what He produces. We arrive, then, at the conclusion that the Universe is not self-existent, not because self-existence cannot be object to the human mind, and be clearly seen to be an attribute of one Being, but because the Universe is primarily object to faculties in that mind, which cannot entertain such a notion at all; and because this notion is _seen_ to be a necessary idea in the province of that higher faculty which entertains as objects both the idea and the Being to whom it primarily belongs.

The theory that the Universe is self-existent is Pantheism, and not the theory that it is self-created, though this latter, in Mr. Spencer's definition of it, seems only a phase of the other. To say that "self-creation is potential existence pa.s.sing into actual existence by some inherent necessity," is only to remove self-existence one step farther back, as he himself shows. Potential existence is either no existence at all, or it is positive existence. If it is no existence, then we have true self-creation; which is, that out of nothing, and with no cause, actual existence starts itself. This is not only unthinkable, but absurd. But if potential existence is positive, it needs to be accounted for as much as actual. While, then, there can be no doubt as to the validity of the conclusions to which Mr. Spencer arrives, respecting the entire incompetency of the hypotheses of self-existence and self-creation, to account for the Universe, the distinction made above between self-existence as a true and self-creation as a pseudo idea, and the fact that the true idea is a _reality_, should never be lost sight of. By failing to discriminate--as in the Understanding he could not do--between them, and by concluding both as objects alike impossible to the human intellect, and for the same reasons, he has also decided that the "commonly received or theistic hypothesis"--creation by external agency--is equally untenable. In his examination of this, he starts as usual with his ever-present, fallacious a.s.sumption, that this is a "conception"; that it can be, _is_ founded upon a "c.u.mulative process of thought, or the fulfilment of predictions based on it."

These words, phrases, and notions, are all irrelevant. It is not a conception, process, or prediction that we want; it is a _sight_. Hence, no a.s.sumptions have to be made or granted. No "proceedings of a human artificer" _can in the least degree_ "vaguely symbolize to us" the "method after which the Universe" was "shaped." This differed in _kind_ from all possible human methods, and had not one element in common with them.

Mr. Spencer's remarks at this point upon s.p.a.ce do not appear to be well grounded. "An immeasurable void"--s.p.a.ce--is not an ent.i.ty, is _no_ thing, and therefore cannot "exist," neither is any explanation for it needed. His question, "how came it so?" takes, then, this form: How came immeasurable nothing to be nothing? Nothing needs no "explanation." It is only _some_ thing which must be accounted for. The theory of creation by external agency being, then, an adequate one to account for the Universe, supplies the following statement. That Being who is primarily out of all relation, produced, from himself, and by his immanent power, into nothing--s.p.a.ce, room, the condition of material existence,--something, matter and the Universe became. "The genesis of the universe" having thus been explained and seen to be "the result of external agency," we are ready to furnish for the question, "how came there to be an external agency?" that true answer, which we have already shadowed forth. That pure spiritual Person who is necessarily existent, or self-existent, _i. e._ who possess pure independence as an essential attribute, whose being is thus fixed, and is therefore without the province of power, is the external agency which is needed. This Person, differing in kind from the Universe, cannot be found in it, nor concluded from it, but can only be known by being seen, and can only be seen because man possesses the endowment of a spiritual _Eye_, like in kind to His own All-seeing eye, by which spiritual things may be discerned. This Person, being thus seen immediately, is known in a far more satisfactory mode than he could be by any generalizations of the Understanding, could he be represented in these at all. The knowledge of Him is, like His self, _immutable_. We KNOW that we stand on the eternal Rock. Our eye is illuminated with the unwavering Light which radiates from the throne of G.o.d. Nor is this any hallucination of the rhapsodist.

It is the simple experience which every one enjoys who looks at pure truth in itself. It is the Pure Reason seeing, by an immediate intuition, G.o.d as pure spirit, revealed directly to itself. It is, then, because self-existence is a pure, simple idea, organic in man, and seen by him to be an attribute of G.o.d, that G.o.d is known to be the Creator of the Universe. Having attained to this truth, we readily see that the conclusions which Mr. Spencer states on pages 35, 36, as that "self-existence is rigorously inconceivable"; that the theistic hypothesis equally with the others is "literally unthinkable"; that "our conception of self-existence can be formed only by joining with it the notion of unlimited duration through past time"; so far as they imply our dest.i.tution of knowledge on these topics, are the opposite of the facts. We _see_, though we cannot "conceive," self-existence. The theistic hypothesis becomes, therefore, literally thinkable. We see, also, that unlimited duration is an absurdity; that duration must be limited; and that self-existence involves existence out of all relation to duration.

Mr. Spencer then turns to the nature of the Universe, and says: "We find ourselves on the one hand obliged to make certain a.s.sumptions, and yet, on the other hand, we find these a.s.sumptions cannot be represented in thought." Upon this it may be remarked:

1. What are here called a.s.sumptions are properly a.s.sertions, which man makes, and cannot help making, except he deny himself;--necessary convictions, first truths, first principles, _a priori_ ideas. They are organic, and so are the foundation of all knowledge. They are not results learned from lessons, but are _primary_, and conditional to an ability to learn. But supposing them to be a.s.sumptions, having, at most, no more groundwork than a vague guess, there devolves a labor which Mr. Spencer and his coadjutors have never attempted, and which, we are persuaded, they would find the most difficult of all, viz., to account for the fact of these a.s.sumptions. For the question is pertinent and urgent;

2. How came these a.s.sumptions to suggest themselves? Where, for instance, did the notion of self come from? a.n.a.lyze the rocks, study plants and their growth, become familiar with animals and their habits, or exhaust the Sense in an examination of man, and one can find no notion of self. Yet the notion is, and is peculiar to man. How does it arise? Is it "created by the slow action of natural causes?" How comes it to belong, then, to the rudest aboriginal equally with the most civilized and cultivated? Was it "created" from nothing or from something? If from something, how came that something to be? We might ask, Does not the presentation of any phenomenon involve the actuality of a somewhat, in which that phenomenon inheres, and of a receptivity by which it is appreciated? Does not the fact of this a.s.sumption, as a mental phenomenon, involve the higher fact of some mental ground, some form, some capacity, which is both organic to the mind, and organized in the mind, in accordance with which the a.s.sumption is, and which determines what it must be? Or are we to believe that these a.s.sumptions are mere happenings, without law, and for which no reason can be a.s.signed? Again we press the question, How came these a.s.sumptions to suggest themselves?

3. "These a.s.sumptions cannot be represented in thought." If "thought" is restricted to that mental operation of the Understanding by which it generalizes in accordance with the Sense, the statement is true. But if it is meant, as seems to be implied, that the notions expressed in these a.s.sumptions are not, cannot be, clearly and definitely known at all by the mind, then it is directly contrary to the truth. The ideas presented by the phrases are, as was seen above, clear and definite.

Since Mr. Spencer has quoted _in extenso_, and with entire approbation, what Mr. Mansel says respecting "the Cause, the Absolute, and the Infinite," we have placed the full examination of these topics in our remarks upon Mr. Mansel's writings, and shall set down only a few brief notes here.

Upon this topic Mr. Spencer admits that "we are obliged to suppose _some_ cause"; or, in other words, that the notion of cause is organic.

Then we must "inevitably commit ourselves to the hypothesis of a First Cause." Then, this First Cause "must be infinite." Then, "it must be independent;" "or, to use the established word, it must be absolute."

One would almost suppose that a _rational_ man penned these decisions, instead of one who denies that he has a _reason_. The illusion is quickly dispelled, however, by the objections he lifts out of the dingy ground-room of the Understanding. It is curious to observe in these pages a fact which we have noticed before, in speaking of Sir William Hamilton's works, viz.: how, on the same page, and in the same sentence, the workings of the Understanding and Reason will run along side by side, the former all the while befogging and hindering the latter. Mr.

Spencer's conclusions which we have quoted, and his objections which we are to answer, are a striking exemplification of this. Frequently in his remarks he uses the words limited and unlimited, as synonymous with finite and infinite, when they are not so, and cannot be used interchangeably with propriety. The former belong wholly in the Sense and Understanding. The latter belong wholly in the Pure Reason. The former pertain to material objects, to mental images of them, or to number. The latter qualify only spiritual persons, and have no pertinence elsewhere. Limitation is the conception of an object _as bounded_. Illimitation is the conception of an object as without boundaries. Rigidly, it is a simple negation of boundaries, and gives nothing positive in the Concept. Finity or finiteness corresponds in the Reason to limitation in the Sense and Understanding. It does not refer to boundaries at all. It belongs only to created spiritual persons, and expresses the fact that they are partial, and must grow and learn. Only by its place in the ant.i.thesis does infinity correspond in the Reason to illimitation in the lower faculties. It is _positive_, and is that quality of the pure spirit which is otherwise known as _universality_.

It expresses the idea of _all possible endowments in perfect harmony_.

From his misuse of these terms Mr. Spencer is led to speak in an irrelevant manner upon the question, "Is the First Cause finite or infinite?" He uses words and treats the whole matter as if it were a question of material substance, which might be "bounded," with a "region surrounding its boundaries," and the like, which are as out of place as to say white love or yellow kindness. His methods of thought on these topics are also gravely erroneous. He attempts an a.n.a.lysis by the logical Understanding, where a synthesis by the Reason is required,--a synthesis which has already been given by our Creator to man as an original idea. It is not necessary to examine some limited thing, or all limited things, and wander around their boundaries to learn that the First Cause is infinite. We need to make no discursus, but only to look the idea of first cause through and through, and thoroughly a.n.a.lyze it, to find all the truth. By such a process we would find all that Mr.

Spencer concedes that "we are obliged to suppose," and further, that such a being _must be_ self-existent. And this conviction would be so strong that the mind would rest itself in this decision: "A thousand phantasmagoria of the imagination may be wrong," says the soul, "but this I know must be true, or there is no truth in the Universe."

One sentence in the paragraph now under consideration deserves special notice. It is this. "But if we admit that there can be some thing uncaused, there is no reason to a.s.sume a cause for anything." This "a.s.sumes" the truth of a major premise all _things_ are substantially alike. If the word "thing" is restricted to its exact limits,--objects of sense,--then the sentence pertains wholly to the Sense and Understanding, and is true. But if, as it would seem, the implication is meant that there are no other ent.i.ties which can be object to the mind except such "things," then it is a clear _pet.i.tio principii_. For the very question at issue is, whether, in fact, there is not one ent.i.ty--"thing"--which so differs in kind from all others, that it is uncaused, _i. e._ self-existent; and whether the admission that that ent.i.ty is uncaused does not, because of this seen difference, satisfy the mind, and furnish a reasonable ground on which to account for the subordinate causes which we observe by the Sense.

In speaking of the First Cause as "independent," he says, "but it can have no necessary relation within itself. There can be nothing in it which determines change, and yet nothing which prevents change. For if it contains something which imposes such necessities or restraints, this something must be a cause higher than the First Cause, which is absurd.

Thus, the First Cause must be in every sense perfect, complete, total, including within itself all power, and transcending all law." We cannot criticize this better, and mark how curiously truth and error are mixed in it, than by so parodying it that only truth shall be stated. The First Cause possesses within himself all possible relations as belonging to his necessary ideals. Hence, change, in the exact sense of that term, is impossible to him, for there is nothing for him to _change to_. This is not invalidated by his pa.s.sing from inaction to action; for creation involves no change in G.o.d's nature or attributes, and so no real or essential change, which is here meant. But he is the permanent, through whom all changes become. He is not, then, a _simple_ unit, but is an organized Being, who is ground for, and comprehends in a unity, all possible laws, forms, and relations, as necessary elements of his necessary existence,--as endowments which necessarily belong to him, and are conditional of his pure independence. Hence, these restraints are not "imposed" upon him, except as his existence is imposed upon him.

They belong to his Self, and are conditional of his being. So, then, instead of "transcending all law," he is the embodiment of all law; and his perfection is, that possessing this endowment, he accords his conduct thereto. A being who should "transcend all law" would have no reason why he should act, and no form how he should act, neither would he be an organism, but would be pure lawlessness or pure chaos. Pure chaos cannot organize order; pure lawlessness cannot establish law; and so could not be the First Cause. As Mr. Spencer truly says, "we have no alternative but to regard this First Cause as Infinite and Absolute."

And now having learned, by a true diagnosis of the mental activities, that the positions we have gained are fixed, final, irrevocable; and further, that they are not the "results" of "reasonings," but that first there was a seeing, and then an a.n.a.lysis of what was seen, and that the seeing is _true_, though every other experience be false; we _know_ that our position is not "illusive," but that we stand on the rock; and that what we have seen is no "symbolic conception of the illegitimate order,"

but is pure truth.

For the further consideration of this subject, the reader is referred back to our remarks on that pa.s.sage in Mr. Mansel's work, which Mr.

Spencer has quoted.

A few remarks upon his summing up, p. 43 _et seq._, will complete the review of this chapter. "Pa.s.sing over the consideration of credibility, and confining ourselves to that of" consistency, we would find in any rigorous a.n.a.lysis, that Atheism and Pantheism are self-contradictory; but we _have found_ that Theism, "when rigorously a.n.a.lyzed," presents an absolutely consistent system, in which all the difficulties of the Understanding are explained to the person by the Reason, and is entirely thinkable. Such a system, based upon the necessary convictions of man, and justly commanding that these shall be the fixed standard, in accordance with which all doubts and queries shall be dissolved and decided, gives a rational satisfaction to man, and discloses to him his eternal REST.

In proceeding to his final fact, which he derives as the permanent in all religions, Mr. Spencer overlooks another equally permanent, equally common, and incomparably more important fact, viz: that Fetis.h.i.+sm, Polytheism, Pantheism, and Monotheism,--all religions alike a.s.sert _that a G.o.d created the Universe_. In other words, the great common element, in all the popular modes of accounting for the vast system of things in which we live is, _that it is the product of an agency external to itself, and that the external agency is personal_. Take the case of the rude aboriginal, who "a.s.sumes a separate personality behind every phenomenon." He does not attempt to account for all objects. His mind is too infantile, and he is too degraded to suspect that those material objects which appear permanent need to be accounted for. It is only the changes which seem to him to need a reason. Behind each change he imagines a sort of personal power, superior to it and man, which produces it, and this satisfies him. He inquires no further; yet he looks in the same direction as the Monotheist. In this crude form of belief, which is named Fetis.h.i.+sm, we see that essential idea which can be readily traced through all forms of religion, that some _personal_ being, external, and superior to the things that be, produced them. Nor is Atheism a proper exception to this law. For Atheism is not a religion, but the denial of all religion. It is not a doctrine of G.o.d, but is a denial that there is any G.o.d; and what is most in point, it never was a _popular_ belief, but is only a philosophical Sahara over which a few caravans of speculative doubters and negatists wander.

Neither can Hindu pantheism be quoted against the position taken: for Brahm is not the Universe; neither are Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Brahm does not lose his individuality because the Universe is evolved from him. _Now_ he is thought of as one, and the Universe as another, although the Universe is thought to be a part of his essence, and hereafter to be reabsorbed by him. _Now_, this part of his essence which was _produced_ through Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, is _individualized_; and so is one, while he is another. Thus, here also, the idea of a proper external agency is preserved. The facts, then, are decisively in favor of the proposition above laid down. "_Our_ investigation"

discloses "a fundamental verity in each religion." And the facts and the verity find no consistent ground except in a pure Theism, and there they do find perfect consistency and harmony.

It is required, finally, in closing the discussion of this chapter, to account for the fact that, upon a single idea so many theories of G.o.d have fastened themselves; or better, perhaps, that a single idea has developed itself in so many forms. This cannot better be done than in the language of that metaphysician, not second to Plato, the apostle Paul. In his Epistle to the Romans, beginning at the 19th verse of the 1st chapter, he says: "Because that which may be known of G.o.d is manifest to them; for G.o.d hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even his eternal power and G.o.dhead, so that they are without excuse. Because that, when they knew G.o.d, they glorified him not as G.o.d, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened: professing themselves to be wise they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible G.o.d into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." This pa.s.sage, which would be worthy the admiring study of ages, did it possess no claim to be the teaching of that Being whom Mr. Spencer a.s.serts it is _impossible for us to know_, gives us in a popular form the truth. Man, having organic in his mind the idea of G.o.d, and having in the Universe an ample manifestation to the Sense, of the eternal power and G.o.dhead of the Creator of that Universe, corresponding to that idea, perverted the manifestation to the Sense, and degraded the idea in the Reason, to the service of base pa.s.sion. By this degradation and perversion the organic idea became so bedizened with the finery of fancy formed in the Understanding, under the direction of the animal nature, as to be lost to the popular mind,--the trappings only being seen. When once the truth was thus lost sight of, and with it all that restraint which a knowledge of the true G.o.d would impose, men became vain in their imaginations; their fancy ran riot in all directions.

Cutting loose from all law, they plunged into every excess which could be invented; and out of such a stimulated and teeming brain all manner of vagaries were devised. This was the first stage; and of it we find some historic hints in the biblical account of the times, during and previous to the life of Abraham. Where secular history begins the human race had pa.s.sed into the second stage. Crystallization had begun.

Students were commencing the search for truth. Religion was taking upon itself more distinct forms. The organic idea, which could not be wholly obliterated, formed itself distinctly in the consciousness of some gifted individuals, and philosophy began. Philosophy in its purest form, as taught by Socrates and Plato, presented again the lost idea of pure Theism. But the spirituality which enabled them to see the truth, lifted them so far above the common people, that they could affect only a few.

And what was most disheartening, that same degradation which originally lost to man the truth, now prevented him from receiving it. Thus it was that by a binding of the Reason to the wheels of Pa.s.sion, and discursing through the world with the Understanding at the beck of the Sense, the many forms of religion became.

"ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS."

On a former page we have already attempted a positive answer to the question, "What are s.p.a.ce and Time," with which Mr. Spencer opens this chapter. It was there found that, in general terms, they are _a priori_ conditions of created being; and, moreover, that they possess characteristics suitable to what they condition, just as the _a priori_ conditions of the spiritual person possess characteristics suitable to what they condition. It was further found that this general law is, from the necessity of the case, realized both within the mind and without it; that it is, must be, the form of thought for the perceiving subject, corresponding to the condition of existence for the perceived object. It also appeared that the Universe as object, and the Sense and Understanding as faculties in the subject, thus corresponded; and further, that these faculties could never transcend and comprehend s.p.a.ce and Time, because these were the very conditions of their being; moreover, that by them all s.p.a.ces and times must be considered with reference to the Universe, and apart from it could not be examined by them at all. Yet it was further found that the Universe might in the presence of the Reason be abstracted; and that, then, pure s.p.a.ce and Time still remained as pure _a priori_ conditions, the one as _room_, the other as _opportunity_, for the coming of created being. s.p.a.ce and Time being such conditions, _and nothing more_, are ent.i.ties only in the same sense that the multiplication table and the moral law are ent.i.ties.

They are _conditions_ suited to what they condition. In the light of this result let us examine Mr. Spencer's teachings respecting them.

Strictly speaking, s.p.a.ce and Time do not "exist." If they exist (ex sto), they must stand out somewhere and when. This of course involves the being of a where and a when in which they can stand out; and that where and when must needs be accounted for, and so on _ad infinitum_.

Again, Mr. Spencer would seem to speak, in his usual style, as if they, in existing "objectively," had a _formal_ objective existence. Yet this, in the very statement of it, appears absurd. The mind apprehends many objects, which do not "exist." They only are. Thus, as has just been said, s.p.a.ce and Time, as conditions of created being, _are_. They are ent.i.ties but not existences. They are _a priori_ ent.i.ties, and so are _necessarily_. By this they stand in the same category with all pure laws, all first principles.

"Moreover, to deny that s.p.a.ce and Time are things, and so by implication to call them nothings, involves the absurdity that there are two kinds of nothings." This sentence "involves the absurdity" of a.s.suming that "nothing" is an ent.i.ty. If I say that s.p.a.ce is nothing, I say that it presents no content for a concept, and cannot, because there is no content to be presented. It is then _blank_. Just so of Time. As nothings they are, then, both equally blank, and dest.i.tute of meaning.

Now if Mr. Spencer wishes to hold that nothing represented by one word, differs from nothing represented by another, we would not lay a straw in his way, but yet would be much surprised if he led a large company.

Again, having decided that they are neither "nonent.i.ties nor the attributes of ent.i.ties, we have no choice but to consider them as ent.i.ties." But he then goes on to speak of them as "things," evidently using the word in the same sense as if applying it to a material object, as an apple or stone; thereby implying that ent.i.ty and thing in that sense are synonymous terms. Upon this leap in the dark, this blunder in the use of language, he proceeds to build up a mountain of difficulties.

But once take away this foundation, once cease attempting "to represent them in thought as things," and his difficulties vanish. s.p.a.ce is a condition. Perhaps receptivity, indivisibility, and illimitability are attributes. If so, it has attributes, for these certainly belong to it.

But whether these shall be called attributes or not, it is certain that s.p.a.ce is, is a pure condition, is thus a positive object to the Reason, is qualified by the characteristics named above; and all this without any contradiction or other insuperable difficulty arising thereby. On the ground now established, we learn that extension and s.p.a.ce are _not_ "convertible terms." Extension is an attribute of matter. s.p.a.ce is a condition of phenomena. It is only all _physical_ "ent.i.ties which we actually know as such" that "are limited." From our standpoint, that s.p.a.ce is _no_ thing, such remarks as "We find ourselves totally unable to form any mental image of unbounded s.p.a.ce," appear painfully absurd.

"We find ourselves" just as "totally unable to form any mental image of unbounded" love. Such phrases as "mental image" have _no relevancy_ to either s.p.a.ce or Time. In criticizing Kant's doctrine, which we have found _true_ as far as it goes, Mr. Spencer evinces a surprising lack of knowledge of the facts in question. "In the first place," he says, "to a.s.sert that s.p.a.ce and Time, as we are conscious of them, are subjective conditions, is by implication to a.s.sert that they are not objective realities." But the conclusion does not follow. If the reader will take the trouble to construct the syllogism on which this is based, he will at once perceive the absurdity of the logic. It may be said in general that all conditions of a thinking being are both subjective and objective: they are conditions of his being--subjective; and they are objects of his examination and cognizance--objective. Is not the multiplication table an objective reality, _i. e._, would it not remain if he be destroyed? And yet is it not also a subjective law; and so was it not originally discovered by introspection and reflection? Again he says, "for that consciousness of s.p.a.ce and Time which we cannot rid ourselves of, is the consciousness of them as existing objectively." Now the fact is, that primarily we do not have _any_ consciousness of s.p.a.ce and Time. _Consciousness has to do with phenomena._ When examining the material Universe, the _objects_, and the objects as at a distance from each other and as during, are what we are conscious of. For instance, I view the planets Jupiter and Saturn. They appear as objects in my consciousness. There is a distance between them; but this distance _is_ not, except as they _are_. If they are not, the word distance has no meaning with reference to them. Take them away, and I have no consciousness of distance as remaining. These planets continue in existence. They endure. This endurance we call time, but if they should cease, one could not think of endurance in connection with them as remaining. Here we most freely and willingly agree with Mr. Spencer that "the question is, What does consciousness directly testify?" but he will find that consciousness on this side of the water testifies very differently from his consciousness: as for instance in the two articles in the "North American Review," heretofore alluded to. Here, "the direct testimony of consciousness is," that s.p.a.ces and times within the Universe are without the mind; that s.p.a.ce and Time, as _a priori_ conditions for the possibility of formal object and during event, are also without the mind; but the "testimony" is none the less clear and "direct" that s.p.a.ce and Time are laws of thought in the mind corresponding to the actualities without the mind. And the question may be asked, it is believed with great force, If this last were not so, how could the mind take any cognizance of the actuality? Again, most truly, s.p.a.ce and Time "cannot be conceived to become non-existent even were the mind to become non-existent." Much more strongly than this should the truth be uttered. They could not become non-existent if the Universe with every sentient being, yea, even--to make an impossible supposition--if the Deity himself, should cease to be. In this they differ no whit from the laws of Mathematics, of Logic, and of Morals.

These too would remain as well. Thus is again enforced the truth, which has been stated heretofore, that s.p.a.ce and Time, as _a priori_ conditions of the Universe, stand in precisely the same relation to material object and during event that the multiplication table does to intellect, or the moral law to a spiritual person. It will now be doubtless plain that Mr. Spencer's remarks sprang directly from the lower faculties. The Sense in its very organization possesses s.p.a.ce and Time as void forms into which objects may come. So also the Understanding possesses the notional as connecting into a totality.

These faculties cannot be in a living man without acting. Activity is their law. Hence images are ever arising and _must_ arise in the Sense, and be connected in the Understanding, and all this in the forms and conditions of s.p.a.ce and Time. He who thinks continually in these conditions will always _imagine_ that s.p.a.ce and Time are only without him--because he will be thinking only in the iron prison-house of the imagining faculty--and so cannot transcend the conditions it imposes.

Now how shall one see these conditions? They do "exist objectively"; or, to phrase it better, they have a true being independent of our minds. In this sense, as we have seen, every _a priori_ condition must be objective to the mind. What is objective to the Sense is not s.p.a.ce but a s.p.a.ce, _i. e._ a part of s.p.a.ce limited by matter; and, after all, it is the boundaries which are the true object rather than the s.p.a.ce, which cannot be "conceived" of if the boundaries be removed. Without further argument, is it not evident that there s.p.a.ce, like all other _a priori_ conditions, is object only to the Reason, and that as a condition of material existence?

At the bottom of page 49 we have another of Mr. Spencer's psychological errors:--"For if s.p.a.ce and Time are forms of thought, they can never be thought of; since it is impossible for anything to be at once the _form_ of thought and the matter of thought." Although this topic has been amply discussed elsewhere, it may not be uninstructive to recur to it again. Exactly the opposite of Mr. Spencer's remark is the truth. The question at issue here is one of those profound and subtile ones which cannot be approached by argument, but can be decided only by a _seeing_.

It is a psychological question pertaining to the profoundest depths of our being. If one says, "I see the forms of thought," and another, "I cannot see them," neither impeaches the other. All that is left is to stimulate the dull faculty of the one until he can see. The following reflections may help us to see. Mr. Spencer's remark implies that we have no higher faculty than the Sense and the Understanding. It implies, also, that we can never have any _self_-knowledge, in the fundamental signification of that phrase. We can observe the conduct of the mind, and study and cla.s.sify the results; but the laws, the const.i.tution of the activity itself must forever remain closed to us. As was said, when speaking of this subject under a different phase, the eye cannot see and study itself. It is a mechanical organism, capable only of reaction as acted upon, capable only of seeing results, but never able to penetrate to the hidden springs which underlie the event. Just so is it with the Sense and Understanding. They are mere mechanical faculties capable of acting as they are acted upon, but never able to go behind the appearance to its final source. On such a hypothesis as this all science is impossible, but most of all a science of the human mind. If man is enclosed by such walls, no knowledge of his central self can be gained.

He may know what he _does_; but what he _is_, is as inscrutable to him as what G.o.d is. As such a being, he is only a higher order of brute. He has some dim perceptions, some vague feelings, but he has no _knowledge_; he is _sure_ of nothing. He can reach no ground which is ultimate, no _Rock_ which he knows is _immutable_. Is man such a being?

The longings and aspirations of the ages roll back an unceasing NO! He is capable of placing himself before himself, of a.n.a.lyzing that self to the very groundwork of his being. All the laws of his const.i.tution, all the forms of his activity, he can clearly and amply place before himself and know them. And how is this? It is because G.o.d has endowed him with an EYE like unto His own, which enables man to be self-comprehending, as He is self-comprehending,--the Reason, with which man may read himself as a child reads a book; that man can make "the _form_ of thought the _matter_ of thought." True, the Understanding is shut out from any consideration of the forms of thought; but man is not simply or mainly an Understanding. He is, in his highest being, a spiritual person, whom G.o.d has endowed with the faculty of VISION; and the great organic evil, which the fall wrought into the world, was this very denial of the spiritual light, and this crowding down and out of sight, of the spiritual person beneath the animal nature, this denial of the essential faculties of such person, and this elevation of the lower faculties of the animal nature, the Sense and Understanding, into the highest place, which is involved in all such teachings as we are criticizing.

Mr. Spencer's remarks upon "Matter" are no nearer the truth. In almost his first sentence there is a grievous logical _faux pas_. He says: "Matter is either infinitely divisible or it is not; no third possibility can be named." Yet we will name one, as follows: _The divisibility of matter has no relation to infinity_. And this _third_ supposition happens to be the truth. But it will be said that the question should be stated thus: Either there is a limit to the divisibility of matter, or there is no limit. This statement is exhaustive, because limitation belongs to matter. Of these alternatives there can be no hesitation which one to choose. There is a limit to the divisibility of matter. This answer cannot be given by the physical sense; for no one questions but what it is incapable of finding a limit.

The mental sense could not give it, because it is a question of actual substance and not of ideal forms. The Reason gives the answer. Matter is limited at both extremes. Its amount is definite, as are its final elements. These "ultimate parts" have "an under and an upper surface, a right and a left side." When, then, one of these parts shall be broken, what results? Not _pieces_, as the materialist, thinking only in the Sense, would have us believe. When a final "part" shall be broken, there will remain _no matter_,--to the sense nothing. To it, the result would be annihilation. But the Reason declares that there would be left _G.o.d's power_ in its simplicity,--that final Unit out of which all diversity becomes.

The subsequent difficulties raised respecting the solidity of Matter may be explained thus. And for convenience sake, we will limit the term Matter to such substances as are object to the physical sense, like granite, while Force shall be used to comprise those finer substances, like the Ether, which are impalpable to the physical sense. Matter is composed of very minute ultimate particles which do not touch, but which are held together by Force. The s.p.a.ce between the atoms, which would otherwise be _in vacuo_, is _full_ of Force. We might be more exhaustive in our a.n.a.lysis, and say--which would be true--that a s.p.a.ce-filling force composes the Universe; and that Matter is only Force in one of its modifications. But without this the other statement is sufficient. When, then, a portion of matter is compressed, the force which holds the ultimate particles in their places is overcome by an external force, and these particles are brought nearer together. Now, how is it with the moving body and the collision? Bisect a line and see the truth.

C A--------B 1

A body with a ma.s.s of 4 is moving with a velocity of 4 along the line from A to B. At C it meets another body with a ma.s.s of 4 at rest. From thence the two move on towards B with a velocity of 2. What has happened? In the body there was a certain amount of force, which set it in motion and kept it in motion. And just here let us make a point. _No force is ever lost or destroyed. It is only transferred._ When a bullet is fired from a gun, it possesses at one _point_ a maximum of force.

From that point this force is steadily _transferred_ to the air and other substances, until all that it received from the powder is spent.

But at any one point in its flight, the sum of the force which has been transferred since the maximum, and of the force yet to be transferred, will always equal the maximum. Now, how is it respecting the question raised by Mr. Spencer? The instant of contact is a point in time, _not a period_, and the transfer of force is instantaneous. C, then, is a _point_, not a period, and the velocity on the one side is 4 and the other side 2, while the momentum or force is exactly equal throughout the line. If it is said that this proves that a body can pa.s.s from one velocity to another without pa.s.sing through the intermediate velocities, we cannot help it. The above are the facts, and they give the truth. The following sentence of Mr. Spencer is, at least, careless. "For when, of two such units, one moving at velocity 4 strikes another at rest, the striking unit must have its velocity 4 instantaneously reduced to velocity 2; must pa.s.s from velocity 4 to velocity 2 without any lapse of time, and without pa.s.sing through intermediate velocities; must be moving with velocities 4 and 2 at the same instant, which is impossible." If there is any sense in the remark, "instantaneously" must mean a _point_ of time _without period_. For, if any period is allowed, the sentence has no meaning, since during that period "the striking unit" pa.s.ses through all "intermediate velocities." But if by instantaneously he means _without period_, then the last clause of the sentence is illogical, since instant there evidently means a period. For if it means point, then it contradicts the first clause. There, it is a.s.serted that 4 was "_reduced_" to 2, _i. e._ that at one point the velocity was 4, and at the next point it was 2, and that there was _no time_ between. If 4 was instantaneously reduced to 2, then the velocity 2 was next after the velocity 4, and not coeval with it. Thus it appears that these two clauses which were meant to be synonymous are contradictory.

Bearing in mind what we have heretofore learned respecting atoms, we shall not be troubled by the objections to the Newtonian theory which follow. In reply to the question, "What is the const.i.tution of these units?" the answer, "We have no alternative but to regard each of them as a small piece of matter," would be true if the Sense was the only faculty which could examine them. But even upon this theory Mr.

Spencer's remarks "respecting the parts of which each atom consists,"

are entirely out of place; for the hypothesis that it is an ultimate atom excludes the supposition of "parts," since that phrase has no meaning except it refers to a final, indivisible, material unit. All that the Sense could say, would be, "What this atom is I know not, but that it is, and _is not divisible_, I believe." But when we see by the Reason that the ultimate atom, when dissolved, becomes G.o.d's power, all difficulty in the question vanishes. Having thus answered the above objections, it is unnecessary to notice the similar ones raised against Boscovich's theory, which is a modification of that of Newton.