Again Mr. Mansel says: "A mental attribute to be conceived as infinite, must be in actual exercise on every possible object: otherwise it is potential only, with regard to those on which it is not exercised; and an unrealized potentiality is a limitation." With our interpretation the assertion is true and contains no puzzle. Every mental attribute of the Deity is most assuredly "in actual exercise," upon every one of its "possible objects" as ideas. But the objects are not therefore actual. Neither is there any need that they should ever become so. He sees them just as clearly, and knows them just as thoroughly as ideals, as he does as actual objects. All ideal objects are "unrealized potentialities"; and yet they are the opposite of limitations proper. But this sentence, as an expression of the thought which Mr. Mansel seemingly wished to convey, is vitiated by the presence of that understanding-conception that infinity is amount, which must be actual. Once regard infinity as quality of the necessarily existent Person, and it directly follows that this or that act, of that Person, in no way disturbs that infinity. The quality conditions the acting being; but the act of that being cannot limit the quality. The quality is, that the act may be; not the reverse. Hence the questions arising from the interrelations of Power and Goodness, Justice and Mercy, are solved at once. Infinity as quality, not amount, pervades them all, and holds them all in perfect harmony, adjusting each to each, in a melody more beautiful than that of the spheres. Even "the existence of Evil" is "compatible with that of" this "perfectly good Being." He does not will that it shall be; neither does he will that it shall not be. If he willed that it should not be, and it was, then he would be "thwarted"; but only on such a hypothesis can the conclusion follow. But he does will that certain creatures shall be, who, though dependent upon him for existence and sustenance, are, like him, final causes,—the final arbiters of their own destinies, who in the choice of ends are unrestrained, and may choose good or ill. He made these creatures, knowing that some of them would choose wrong, and so evil would be: but he did not will the evil. He only willed the conditions upon which evil was possible, and placed all proper bars to prevent the evil; and the a priori facts of his immutable perfection in endowments, and of his untarnished holiness, are decisive of the consequent fact, that, in willing those conditions, God did the very best possible deed. If it be further asserted that the fact, that the Being who possesses all possible endowments in perfection could not wisely prevent sin, is a limitation; and, further, that it were better to have prevented sin by an unwise act than to have permitted it by a wise act; it can only be replied: This is the same as to say, that it is essential to God's perfection that he be imperfect; or, that it was better for the perfect Being to violate his Self than to permit sin. If any one in his thinking chooses to accept of such alternatives, there remains no ground of argument with him; but only "a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversary."
Carrying on his presentation of difficulties, Mr. Mansel further remarks: "Let us however suppose for an instant, that these difficulties are surmounted, and the existence of the Absolute securely established on the testimony of reason. Still we have not succeeded in reconciling this idea with that of a Cause: we have done nothing towards explaining how the absolute can give rise to the relative, the infinite to the finite. If the condition of causal activity is a higher state than that of quiescence, the absolute, whether acting voluntarily or involuntarily, has passed from a condition of comparative imperfection to one of comparative perfection; and therefore was not originally perfect. If the state of activity is an inferior state to that of quiescence, the Absolute, in becoming a cause, has lost its original perfection." On this topic we can but repeat the argument heretofore adduced. Let the supposition be entertained that perfection does not belong to a state, but to God's nature, to what God is, as ground for what God does, and standing in the logical order before his act; and it will directly appear that a state of quiescence or a state of activity in no way modifies his perfection. What God is, remains permanent and perfect, and his acts are only manifestations of that permanent and perfect. It follows, then, taking the first moment of time as the point of departure, that, before that point, God was in a state of complete blessedness, and that after that point he was also in such a state; and, further, that while these two states are equal, there is not "complete indifference," because there was a reason, clearly seen by the Divine mind, why the passage from quiescence to activity should be when it was, and as it was, and that this reason having been acknowledged in his conduct, gives to the two states equality, and yet differentiates the one from the other.
"Again, how can the Relative be conceived as coming into being?" It cannot be conceived at all. The faculty of the mind by which it forms a concept—the discursive Understanding—is impotent to conceive what cannot be conceived—the act of creation. The changes of matter can be concluded into a system, but not the power by which the matter came to be, and the changes were produced. If the how is known at all, it must be seen. The laws of the process must be intuited, as also the process as logically according with those laws. The following is believed to be an intelligible account of the process, and an answer to the above question. The absolute and infinite Person possesses as a priori organic elements of his being, all possible endowments in perfect harmony. Hence all laws, and all possible combinations of laws, are at once and always present before the Eye of his Reason, which is thus constituted Universal Genius. These combinations may be conveniently named ideal forms. They arise spontaneously, being in no way dependent upon his will, but are rather a priori conditional of any creative activity. So, too, they harmoniously arrange themselves into systems,—archetypes of what may be, some of which may appear nobler, and others inferior. This Person, being such as we have stated, possesses also as endowment all power, and thereby excludes the possibility of there being any "other" power. This power is adequate to do all that power can do,—to accomplish all that lies within the province of power. So long as the Person sees fit not to exert his power, his ideal forms will be only ideals, and the power will be simply power. But whenever he shall see fit to send forth his power, and organize it according to the ideal forms, the Universe will become. In all this the Person, "of his own will," freely establishes whatever his unerring wisdom shows is most worthy of his dignity; and so the actualities and relations which he thus ordains are no proper limit or restraint, for they in no way lessen his fulness, but are only a manifestation of that fulness,—a declaration of his glory. In a word, Creation is that executive act of God by which he combines with his power that ideal system which he had chosen because best, or it is the organization of ample power according to perfect law. If one shall now ask, "How could he send forth the power?" it is to be replied that the question is prompted by the curiosity of the "flesh," man's animal nature; and since no representation—picture—can be made, no answer can be furnished. It is not needed to know how God is, or does anything, but only that he does it. All the essential requirements of the problem are met when it is ascertained in the light of the Reason, that all fulness is in God, that from this fulness he established all other beings and their natural relations, and that no relation is imposed upon him by another. The view thus advanced avoids the evil of the understanding-conception, that creation is the bringing of something out of nothing. There is an actual self-existent ground, from which the Universe is produced. Neither is the view pantheistic, for it starts with the a priori idea of an absolute and infinite Person who is "before all things, and by whom all things consist,"—who organizes his own power in accordance with his own ideals, and thus produces the Universe, and all this by free will in self-consciousness.
On page eighty-four, in speaking "of the atheistic alternative," Mr. Mansel makes use of the following language: "A limit is itself a relation; and to conceive a limit as such, is virtually to acknowledge the existence of a correlative on the other side of it." Upon reading this sentence, some sensuous form spontaneously appears in the Sense. Some object is conceived, and something outside it, that bounds it. But let the idea be once formed of a Being who possesses all limitation within himself, and for whom there is no "other side," nor any "correlative," and the difficulty vanishes. We do not seek to account for sensuous objects. It is pure Spirit whom we consider. We do not need to form a concept of "a first moment in time," or "a first unit of space," nor could we if we would. To do so would be for the faculty which forms concepts to transcend the very laws of its organization. What we need is, to see the fact that a Spirit is, who, possessing personality as form, and absoluteness and infinity as qualities, thereby contains all limits and the ground of all being in himself, and antithetical to whom is only negation.
From the ground thus attained there is seen to result, not the dreary Sahara of interminable contradictions, but the fair land of harmonious consistency. A Spirit, sole, personal, self-conscious, the absolute and infinite Person, is the Being we seek and have found; and upon such a Being the soul of man may rest with the unquestioning trust of an infant in its mother's arms. One cannot pass by unnoticed the beautiful spirit of religious reverence which shines through the closing paragraphs of this lecture. It is evident with what dissatisfaction the writer views the sterile puzzles of which he has been treating, and what a relief it is to turn from them to "the God who is 'gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil.'" The wonder is, that he did not receive that presentation which his devout spirit has made, as the truth—which it is—and say, "I will accept this as final. My definitions and deductions shall accord with this highest revelation. This shall be my standard of interpretation." Had he done so, far other, and, as it is believed, more satisfactory and truthful would have been the conclusions he would have given us.
In his third Lecture Mr. Mansel is occupied with an examination of the human nature, for the purpose, if possible, of finding "some explanation of the singular phenomenon of human thought," which he has just developed. At the threshold of the investigation the fact of consciousness appears, and he begins the statement of its conditions in the following language: "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." In this statement Mr. Mansel unconsciously assumes as settled, the very question at issue; for, the position maintained by one class of writers is, that in certain of our mental operations, viz., in intuitions, the mind sees a simple truth, idea, first principle, as it is, in itself, and that there is no distinction in the act of knowledge. It is unquestionably true that, in the examination of objects on the Sense, and the conclusion of judgments in the Understanding, no object can come into consciousness without implying a "distinction between one object and another." But it is also evident that a first truth, to be known as such, must be intuited—seen as it is in itself; and so directly known to have the qualities of necessity and universality which constitute it a first truth. Of this fact Sir William Hamilton seems to have been aware, when he denied the actuality of the Reason,—perceiving, doubtless, that only on the ground of such a denial was his own theory tenable. But if it shall be admitted, as it would seem it must be, that men have necessary and universal convictions, then it must also be admitted that these convictions are not entertained by distinguishing them from other mental operations, but that they are seen of themselves to be true; and thus it appears that there are some modes of consciousness which do not imply the "distinction" claimed. The subsequent sentences seem capable of more than one interpretation. If the author means that "the Infinite" cannot be infinite without he is also finite, so that all distinction ceases, then his meaning is both pantheistic and contradictory; for the word infinite has no meaning, if it is not the opposite of finite, and to identify them is undoubtedly Pantheism. Or if he means "that the Infinite cannot be distinguished" as independent, from the Finite as independent, and thus, as possessing some quality with which it was not endowed by the infinite Person, then there can be no doubt of his correctness. But if, as would seem, his idea of infinity is that of amount, is such that it appears inconsistent, contradictory, for the infinite Person to retain his infinity, and still create beings who are really other than himself, and possessing, as quality, finiteness, which he cannot possess as quality, then is his idea of what infinity is wrong. Infinity is quality, and the capacity to thus create is essential to it. All that the Reason requires is, that the finite be created by and wholly dependent upon the infinite Person; then all the relations and conditions are only improper,—such as that Person has established, and which, therefore, in no way diminish his glory or detract from his fulness. When, then, Mr. Mansel says, "A consciousness of the Infinite, as such, thus necessarily involves a self-contradiction, for it implies the recognition, by limitation and difference, of that which can only be given as unlimited and indifferent," it is evident that he uses the term infinite to express the understanding-conception of unlimited amount, which is not relevant here, rather than the reason-idea of universality which is not contradictory to a real distinction between the Infinite and finite. There is also involved the unexpressed assumption that we have no knowledge except of the limited and different, or, in other words, that the Understanding is the highest faculty of the mind. It has already been abundantly shown that this is erroneous,—that the Reason knows its objects in themselves, as out of all relation, plurality, difference, or likeness. Dropping now the abstract term "the infinite," and using the concrete and proper form, we may say:
We are conscious of infinity, i. e. we are conscious that we see with the eye of Reason infinity as a simple, a priori idea; and that it is quality of the Deity.
2. We are conscious of the infinite Person; in that we are conscious, that we see with the eye of Reason the complex a priori idea of a perfect Person possessing independence and universality as qualities of his Self. But we are not conscious of him in that we exhaustively comprehend him. As is said elsewhere, we know that he is, and to a certain extent, but not wholly what he is.
In further discussing this question Mansel is guilty of another grave psychological error. He says, "Consciousness is essentially a limitation, for it is the determination to one actual out of many possible modifications." There is no truth in this sentence. Consciousness is not a limitation; it is not a determination; it is not a modification. It may be well to state here certain conclusions on this assertion, which will be brought out in the fuller discussion of it, when we come to speak of Mr. Spencer's book. Consciousness is one, and retains that oneness throughout all modifications. These occur in the unity as items of experience affect it. Doubtless Dr. Hickok's illustration is the best possible. Consciousness is the light in which a spiritual person sees the modifications of himself, i. e. the activity of his faculties and capacities. Like Space, only in a different sphere, it is an illimitable indivisible unity, which is, that all limits may be in it—that all objects may come into it. If, then, only one modification—object—comes into it at a time, this is because the faculties which see in its light are thus organized;—the being to whom it belongs is partial; but there is nothing pertaining to consciousness as such, which constitutes a limit,—which could bar the infinite Person from seeing all things at once in its light. This Person, then, so far as known, must be known as an actual absolute, infinite Spirit, and hence no "thing"; and further as the originator and sustainer of all "things,"—which, though dependent on him, in no way take aught from him. He may be known also, as potentially everything, in the sense that all possible combinations, or forms of objects, must ever stand as ideals in his Reason; and he can, at his will, organize his power in accordance therewith. But he must also be known as free to create or not to create; and that the fact that many potential forms remain such, in no way detracts from his infinity.
Another of Mr. Mansel's positions involve conclusions which, we feel assured, he will utterly reject. He says, "If all thought is limitation,—if whatever we conceive is, by the very act of conception, regarded as finite,—the infinite, from a human point of view, is merely a name for the absence of those conditions under which thought is possible." "From a human point of view," and we, at least, can take no other, what follows? That the Deity can have no thoughts; cannot know what our thoughts are, or that we think. But three suppositions can be made. Either he has no thoughts, is destitute of an intellect; or his intellect is Universal Genius, and he sees all possible objects at once; or there is a faculty different in kind from and higher than the Reason, of which we have, can have, no knowledge. The first, though acknowledged by Hamilton in a passage elsewhere quoted, and logically following from the position taken by Mr. Mansel, is so abhorrent to the soul that it must be unhesitatingly rejected. The second is the position advocated in this treatise. The third is hinted at by Mr. Herbert Spencer. We reject this third, because the Reason affirms it to be impossible; and because, being unnecessary, by the law of parsimony it should not be allowed. To advocate a position of which, in the very terms of it, the intellect can have no possible shadow of knowledge, is, to say the least, no part of the work of a philosopher. "The condition of consciousness is" not "distinction" in the understanding-conception of that term. So consciousness is not a limitation, though all limits when cognized are seen in the light of consciousness. According to the philosophy we advocate, God is a particular being, and is so known; yet he is not known as "one thing out of many," but is known in himself, as being such and such, and yet being unique. When Mr. Mansel says, "In assuming the possibility of an infinite object of consciousness, I assume, therefore, that it is at the same time limited and unlimited," he evidently uses those terms with a signification pertinent only to the Understanding. He is thinking of amount under the forms of Space and Time; and so his remark has no validity. He who thinks of God rightly, will think of him as the infinite and absolute spiritual Person; and will define infinity and absoluteness in accordance therewith.