"Thought," says Hamilton, "can not transcend consciousness: consciousness is only possible under the antithesis of a subject and an object known only in correlation, and mutually limiting each other" [318] Thought necessarily supposes conditions; "to think is simply to condition," that is, to predicate limits; and as the infinite is the unlimited, it can not be thought. The very attempt to think the infinite renders it finite; therefore there can be no infinite in thought, and, consequently, the infinite can not be known.
[Footnote 317: ][ (return) ] Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 179.
[Footnote 318: ][ (return) ] "Discussions," p. 21.
If by "the infinite in thought" is here meant the infinite compassed or contained in thought, we readily grant that the finite can not contain the infinite; it is a simple truism which no one has ever been so foolish as to deny. Even Cousin is not so unwise as to assert the absolutely comprehensibility of God. "In order absolutely to comprehend the Infinite, it is necessary to have an infinite power of comprehension, and this is not granted to us." [319] A finite mind can not have "an infinite thought." But it by no means follows that, because we can not have infinite thought, we can have no clear and definite thought of or concerning the Infinite. We have a precise and definite idea of infinitude; we can define the idea; we can set it apart without danger of being confounded with another, and we can reason concerning it. There is nothing we more certainly and intuitively know than that space is infinite, and yet we can not comprehend or grasp within the compass of our thought the infinite space. We can not form an image of infinite space, can not traverse it in perception, or represent it by any combination of numbers; but we can have the thought of it as an idea of Reason, and can argue concerning it with precision and accuracy. [320] Hamilton has an idea of the Infinite; he defines it; he reasons concerning it; he says "we must believe in the infinity of God." But how can he define the Infinite unless he possesses some knowledge, however limited, of the infinite Being? How can he believe in the infinity of God if he has no definite idea of infinitude? He can not reason about, can not affirm or deny any thing concerning, that of which he knows absolutely nothing.
[Footnote 319: ][ (return) ] "Lectures on History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 104.
[Footnote 320: ][ (return) ] "To form an image of any infinitude--be it of time or space [or power]; to go mentally through it by successive steps of representation--is indeed impossible; not less so than to traverse it in our finite perception and experience. But to have the thought of it as an idea of the reason, not of the phantasy, and assign that thought a constituent place in valid beliefs and consistent reasonings, appears to us as not only possible, but inevitable."--Martineau's "Essays," p. 205.
The grand logical barrier which Hamilton perpetually interposes to all possible cognition of God as infinite is, that to think is to condition--to limit; and as the Infinite is the unconditioned, the unlimited, therefore "the Infinite can not be thought." We grant at once that all human thought is limited and finite, but, at the same time, we emphatically deny that the limitation of our thought imposes any conditions or limits upon the object of thought. No such affirmation can be consistently made, except on the Hegelian hypothesis that "Thought and Being are identical;" and this is a maxim which Hamilton himself repudiates. Our thought does not create, neither does it impose conditions upon, any thing.
There is a lurking sophism in the whole phraseology of Hamilton in regard to this subject. He is perpetually talking about "thinking a thing"--"thinking the Infinite." Now we do not think a thing, but we think of or concerning a thing. We do not think a man, neither does our thought impose any conditions upon the man, so that he must be as our thought conceives or represents him; but our thought is of the man, concerning or about the man, and is only so far true and valid as it conforms to the objective reality. And so we do not "think the Infinite;" that is, our thought neither contains nor conditions the Infinite Being, but our thoughts are about the Infinite One; and if we do not think of Him as a being of infinite perfection, our thought is neither worthy, nor just, nor true. [321]
[Footnote 321: ][ (return) ] Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," pp. 255, 256.
But we are told the law of all thought and of all being is determination; consequently, negation of some quality or some potentiality; whereas the Infinite is "the One and the All" (τὸ Ἕν καὶ Πῦν), [322] or, as Dr. Mansel, the disciple and annotator of Hamilton, affirms, "the sum of all reality," and "the sum of all possible modes of being." [323] The Infinite, as thus defined, must include in itself all being, and all modes of being, actual and possible, not even excepting evil. And this, let it be observed, Dr. Mansel has the hardihood to affirm. "If the Absolute and the Infinite is an object of human conception at all, this, and none other, is the conception required." [324] "The Infinite Whole," as thus defined, can not be thought, and therefore it is argued the Infinite God can not be known. Such a doctrine shocks our moral sense, and we shrink from the thought of an Infinite which includes evil. There is certainly a moral impropriety, if not a logical impossibility, in such a conception of God.