In criticising the arguments of Sir W. Hamilton against M. Cousin, Mr Mill insists much on a distinction between (1) the Infinite, and (2) the Infinite in any one or more positive attributes, such as infinite wisdom, goodness, redness, hardness, &c.[[4]] He thinks that Sir W. Hamilton has made out his case against the first, but not against the last; that the first is really 'an unmeaning and senseless abstraction,' a fasciculus of negations, unknowable and inconceivable, but not the last. We think that Mr Mill makes more of this distinction than the case warrants; that the first is not unmeaning, but an intelligible abstraction, only a higher reach of abstraction than the last; that it is knowable inadequately, in the same way as the last—though more inadequately, because of its higher abstraction.
As the finite is intelligible, so also is its negation—the Infinite: we do not say (with M. Cousin) that the two are conjointly given in consciousness—but the two are understood and partially apprehended by the mind conjointly and in contrast. Though the Infinite is doubtless negative as to a degree, it is not wholly or exclusively negative, since it includes a necessary reference to some positive attribute, to which the degree belongs; the positive element is not eliminated, but merely left undetermined. The Infinite (like the Finite, [Greek: to peperasmhenon—to hapeiron]) is a genus; it comprehends under it the Infinitely Hard and the Infinitely Soft, the Infinitely Swift and the Infinitely Slow—the infinite, in short, of any or all positive attributes. It includes, doubtless, 'a farrago of contradictions;' but so, also, does the Finite—and so, also, do the actual manifestations of the real, concrete universe, which manifestations constitute a portion of the Finite. Whoever attempts to give any philosophical account of the generation of the universe, tracing its phenomena, as an aggregate, to some ultra-phenomenal origin, must include in his scheme a fundamentum for all those opposite and contradictory manifestations which experience discloses in the universe. There always have been, and still are, many philosophers who consider the Abstract and General to be prior both in nature and time to the Concrete and Particular; and who hold further that these two last are explained, when presented as determinate and successive manifestations of the two first, which they conceive as indeterminate and sempiternal. Now the Infinite (Ens Infinitum or Entia Infinita, according to the point of view in which we look at it) is a generic word, including all these supposed indeterminate antecedents; and including therefore, of course, many contradictory agencies. But this does not make it senseless or unmeaning; nor can we distinguish it from 'the Infinite in some one or more given attributes,' by any other character than by greater reach of abstraction. We cannot admit the marked distinction which Mr Mill contends for—that the one is unknowable and the other knowable.
It may be proper to add that the mode of philosophizing which we have just described is not ours. We do not agree in this way either of conceiving, or of solving, the problem of philosophy. But it is a mode so prevalent that Trendelenberg speaks of it, justly enough, as 'the ancient Hysteron-Proteron of Abstraction.' The doctrine of these philosophers appears to us unfounded, but we cannot call it unmeaning.
In another point, also, we differ from Mr Mill respecting that inferior abstraction which he calls 'the Infinite in some particular attribute.' He speaks as if this could be known not only as an abstraction, a conceivable, an ideal—but also as a concrete reality; as if 'we could know a concrete reality as infinite or as absolute' (p. 45); as if there really existed in actual nature 'concrete persons or things possessing infinitely or absolutely certain specific attributes'—(pp. 55—93). To this doctrine we cannot subscribe. As we understand concrete reality, we find no evidence to believe that there exist in nature any real concrete persons or things, possessing to an infinite degree such attributes as they do possess: e.g. any men infinitely wise or infinitely strong, any horses infinitely swift, any stones infinitely hard. Such concrete real objects appear to us not admissible, because experience not only has not certified their existence in any single case, but goes as far to disprove their existence as it can do to disprove anything. All the real objects in nature known to us by observation are finite, and possess only in a finite measure their respective attributes. Upon this is founded the process of Science, so comprehensively laid out by Mr Mill in his 'System of Logic '—Induction, Deduction from general facts attested by Induction, Verification by experience of the results obtained by Deduction. The attributes, whiteness or hardness, in the abstract, are doubtless infinite; that is, the term will designate, alike and equally, any degree of whiteness or hardness which you may think of, and any unknown degree even whiter and harder than what you think of. But when perceived as invested in a given mass of snow or granite before us, they are divested of that indeterminateness, and become restricted to a determinate measure and degree.
Having thus indicated the points on which we are compelled to dissent from Mr Mill's refutation of Sir W. Hamilton in the pleading against M. Cousin, we shall pass to the seventh chapter, in which occurs his first controversy with Mr Mansel. This passage has excited more interest, and will probably be remembered by a larger number of readers, than any portion of the book. We shall give it in his own words (pp. 99—103), since the energetic phraseology is quite as remarkable as the thought:—
'There is but one way for Mr Mansel out of this difficulty, and he adopts it. He must maintain, not merely that an Absolute Being is unknowable in himself, but that the Relative attributes of an Absolute Being are unknowable also.[[5]] He must say that we do not know what Wisdom, Justice, Benevolence, Mercy, &c., are, as they exist in God. Accordingly, he does say so. "It is a fact" (says Mr Mansel) "which experience forces upon us, and which it is useless, were it possible, to disguise, that the representation of God after the model of the highest human morality which we are capable of conceiving, is not sufficient to account for all the phenomena exhibited by the course of his natural Providence. The infliction of physical suffering, the permission of moral evil, the adversity of the good, the prosperity of the wicked, the crimes of the guilty involving the misery of the innocent, the tardy appearance and partial distribution of moral and religious knowledge in the world—these are facts, which no doubt are reconcilable, we know not how, with the Infinite Goodness of God, but which certainly are not to be explained on the supposition that its sole and sufficient type is to be found in the finite goodness of man."
'In other words' (continues Mr Mill commenting) 'it is necessary to suppose that the infinite goodness ascribed to God is not the goodness which we know and love in our fellow-creatures, distinguished only as infinite in degree; but is different in kind, and another quality altogether. Accordingly Mr Mansel combats as a heresy of his opponents, the opinion that infinite goodness differs only in degree from finite goodness.—Here, then, I take my stand upon the acknowledged principle of logic and of morality; that when we mean different things we have no right to call them by the same name, and to apply to them, the same predicates, moral and intellectual. If, instead of the glad tidings that there exists a Being in whom all the excellences which the highest human form can conceive, exist in a degree inconceivable to us, I am informed that the world is ruled by a being whose attributes are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn, except that the highest human morality does not sanction them—convince me of this and I will hear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I must believe this, and at the same time call this being by the names which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say, in plain terms, that I will not. Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one thing he shall not do; he shall not compel me to worship him. I will call no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go.'
This concluding declaration is memorable in many ways. Mr Mill announces his resolution to determine for himself, and according to his own reason and conscience, what God he will worship, and what God he will not worship. For ourselves, we cordially sympathize with his resolution. But Mr Mill must be aware that this is a point on which society is equally resolved that no individual shall determine for himself, if they can help it.[[6]] Each new-born child finds his religious creed ready prepared for him. In his earliest days of unconscious infancy, the stamp of the national, gentile, phratric, God, or Gods, is imprinted upon him by his elders; and if the future man, in the exercise of his own independent reason, acquires such convictions as compel him to renounce those Gods, proclaiming openly that he does so—he must count upon such treatment as will go far to spoil the value of the present life to him, even before he passes to those ulterior liabilities which Mr Mill indicates in the distance. We are not surprised that a declaration so unusual and so impressive should have been often cited in critical notices of this volume; that during the month preceding the last Westminster election, it was studiously brought forward by some opponents of Mr Mill, and more or less regretted by his friends, as likely to offend many electors, and damage his chance of success; and that a conspicuous and noble-minded ecclesiastic, the Dean of Westminster, thought the occasion so grave as to come forward with his characteristic generosity, for the purpose of shielding a distinguished man suspected of heresy.
The sublime self-assertion, addressed by Prometheus to Zeus, under whose sentence he was groaning, has never before been put into such plain English.[[7]] Mr Mill's declaration reminds us also of Hippolytus, the chaste and pure youth, whose tragic fate is so beautifully described by Euripides. Hippolytus is exemplary in his devotions to the Goddess Artemis; but he dissents from all his countrymen, and determines for himself, in refusing to bestow the smallest mark of honour or worship upon Aphroditê, because he considers her to be a very bad Goddess.[[8]] In this refusal he persists with inflexible principle (even after having received, from an anxious attendant, warning of the certain ruin which it will bring upon him), until the insulted Aphroditê involves him, along with the unhappy Phædra and Theseus himself, in one common abyss of misery. In like manner Mr Mill's declaration stands in marked contrast with the more cautious proceeding of men like Herodotus. That historian, alike pious and prudent, is quite aware that all the Gods are envious and mischief-making, and expressly declares them to be so.[[9]] Yet, far from refusing to worship them on that account, he is assiduous in prayer and sacrifice—perhaps, indeed, all the more assiduous in consequence of what he believes about their attributes;[[10]] being persuaded (like the attendant who warned Hippolytus) that his only chance of mollifying their ungentle dispositions in regard to himself is, by honorific tribute in words and offerings.
When, however, after appreciating as we are bound to do Mr Mill's declaration of subjective sentiment, we pass to its logical bearing on the controversy between him and Mr Mansel, we are obliged to confess that in this point of view it has little objective relevancy. The problem was, how to reconcile the actual evil and suffering in the universe (which is recited as a fact by Mr Mansel, though in terms conveying a most inadequate idea of its real magnitude) with the goodness of God. Mr Mill repudiates the explanatory hypothesis tendered by Mr Mansel, as a solution, but without suggesting any better hypothesis of his own. For ourselves, we are far from endorsing Mr Mansel's solution as satisfactory; yet we can hardly be surprised if he considers it less unsatisfactory than no solution at all. And when we reflect how frequently and familiarly predicates applicable to man are applied to the Supreme Being, when they cannot possibly be understood about Him in the same sense—we see no ground for treating the proceeding as disingenuous, which Mr Mill is disposed to do. Indeed, it cannot easily be avoided: and Mr Mill himself furnishes us with some examples in the present volume. At page 491, he says:—