Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation / Including Some Strictures Upon the Theories of Rev. Henry L. Mansel and Mr. Herbert Spencer

by Jesse Henry Jones

"Unavoidable as this conclusion seems, it involves, I think, a grave error. If the premiss be granted, the inference must doubtless be admitted; but the premiss, in the form presented by Sir William Hamilton and Mr. Mansel, is not strictly true. Though, in the foregoing pages, the arguments used by these writers to show that the Absolute is unknowable, have been approvingly quoted; and though these arguments have been enforced by others equally thoroughgoing, yet there remains to be stated a qualification, which saves us from that scepticism otherwise necessitated. It is not to be denied that so long as we confine ourselves to the purely logical aspect of the question, the propositions quoted above must be accepted in their entirety; but when we contemplate its more general, or psychological aspect, we find that these propositions are imperfect statements of the truth; omitting, or rather excluding, as they do, an all-important fact. To speak specifically:—Besides that definite consciousness of which Logic formulates the laws, there is also an indefinite consciousness which cannot be formulated. Besides complete thoughts, and besides the thoughts which, though incomplete, admit of completion, there are thoughts which it is impossible to complete, and yet which are still real, in the sense that they are normal affections of the intellect.

"Observe in the first place, that every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is demonstrated, distinctly postulates the positive existence of something beyond the relative. To say that we cannot know the Absolute, is, by implication, to affirm that there is an Absolute. In the very denial of our power to learn what the Absolute is, there lies hidden the assumption that it is; and the making of this assumption proves that the Absolute has been present to the mind, not as a nothing but as a something. Similarly with every step in the reasoning by which this doctrine is upheld. The Noumenon, everywhere named as the antithesis of the Phenomenon, is throughout necessarily thought of as an actuality. It is rigorously impossible to conceive that our knowledge is a knowledge of Appearances only, without at the same time conceiving a Reality of which they are appearances; for appearance without reality is unthinkable." After carrying on this train of argument a little further, he reaches this just and decisive result. "Clearly, then, the very demonstration that a definite consciousness of the Absolute is impossible to us, unavoidably presupposes an indefinite consciousness of it." Carrying the argument further, he says: "Perhaps the best way of showing that, by the necessary conditions of thought, we are obliged to form a positive though vague consciousness of this which transcends distinct consciousness, is to analyze our conception of the antithesis between Relative and Absolute." He follows the presentation of certain "antinomies of thought" with an extract from Sir William Hamilton's words, in which the logician enounces his doctrine that in "correlatives" "the positive alone is real, the negative is only an abstraction of the other"; or, in other words, the one gives a substance of some kind in the mind, the other gives simply nothingness, void, absolute negation. Criticizing this, Mr. Spencer is unquestionably right in saying: "Now the assertion that of such contradictories 'the negative is only an abstraction of the other'—'is nothing else than its negation'—is not true. In such correlatives as Equal and Unequal, it is obvious enough that the negative concept contains something besides the negation of the positive one; for the things of which equality is denied are not abolished from consciousness by the denial. And the fact overlooked by Sir William Hamilton is, that the like holds, even with those correlatives of which the negative is inconceivable, in the strict sense of the word." Proceeding with his argument, he establishes, by ample illustration, the fact that a "something constitutes our consciousness of the Non-relative or Absolute." He afterwards shows plainly by quotations, "that both Sir William Hamilton and Mr. Mansel do," in certain places, "distinctly imply that our consciousness of the Absolute, indefinite though it is, is positive not negative." Further on he argues thus: "Though Philosophy condemns successively each attempted conception of the Absolute; though it proves to us that the Absolute is not this, nor that, nor that; though in obedience to it we negative, one after another, each idea as it arises; yet as we cannot expel the entire contents of consciousness, there ever remains behind an element which passes into new shapes. The continual negation of each particular form and limit simply results in the more or less complete abstraction of all forms and limits, and so ends in an indefinite consciousness of the unformed and unlimited." Thus he brings us to "the ultimate difficulty—How can there possibly be constituted a consciousness of the unformed and unlimited, when, by its very nature, consciousness is possible only under forms and limits?" This he accounts for by by hypostatizing a "raw material" in consciousness which is, must be, present. He presents his conclusion as follows: "By its very nature, therefore, this ultimate mental element is at once necessarily indefinite and necessarily indestructible. Our consciousness of the unconditioned being literally the unconditioned consciousness, or raw material of thought, to which in thinking we give definite forms, it follows that an ever-present sense of real existence is the very basis of our intelligence." ...

"To sum up this somewhat too elaborate argument:—We have seen how, in the very assertion that all our knowledge, properly so called, is Relative, there is involved the assertion that there exists a Non-relative. We have seen how, in each step of the argument by which this doctrine is established, the same assumption is made. We have seen how, from the very necessity of thinking in relations, it follows that the Relative itself is inconceivable, except as related to a real Non-relative. We have seen that, unless a real Non-relative or Absolute be postulated, the Relative itself becomes absolute, and so brings the argument to a contradiction. And on contemplating the process of thought, we have equally seen how impossible it is to get rid of the consciousness of an actuality lying behind appearances; and how, from this impossibility, results our indestructible belief in that actuality."

The approval which has been accorded to certain of the arguments adduced by Mr. Spencer in favor of his especial point, that the Absolute is a positive somewhat in consciousness, and to that point as established, must not be supposed to apply also to that hypothesis of "indefinite consciousness" by which he attempts to reconcile this position with his former teachings. On the contrary, it will be our purpose hereafter to show that this hypothesis is a complete fallacy.

As against the positions taken by Sir William Hamilton and Mr. Mansel, Mr. Spencer's argument may unquestionably be deemed decisive. Admitting the logical accuracy of their reasoning, he very justly turns from the logical to the psychological aspect of the subject, takes exception to their premiss, shows conclusively that it is fallacious, and gives an approximate, though unfortunately a very partial and defective presentation of the truth. Indeed, the main issue which must now be made with him is whether the position he has here taken, and which he puts forth as that peculiar element in his philosophical system, that new truth, which shall harmonize Hamiltonian Limitism with the facts of human nature, is not, when carried to its logical results, in diametrical and irreconcilable antagonism to that whole system, and all that he has before written, and so does not annihilate them. It will be our present endeavor to show that such is the result.

Perhaps we cannot better examine Mr. Spencer's theory than, first, to take up what we believe to be the element of truth in it, and carry out this to its logical results; and afterwards to present what seem to be the elements of error, and show them to be such.

1. "We are obliged to form a positive though vague consciousness of" "the Absolute." Without criticizing his use here of consciousness as if it were a faculty of knowledge, and remembering that we cannot have a consciousness of anything without having a knowledge commensurate with that consciousness, we will see that Mr. Spencer's assertion is tantamount to saying, We have a positive knowledge that the Absolute is. It does not seem that he himself can disallow this. Grant this, and our whole system follows, as does also the fallacy of his own. Our argument will proceed thus. Logic is the science of the pure laws of thought, and is mathematically accurate, and is absolute. Being such, it is law for all intellect, for God as well as man. But three positions can be taken. Either it is true for the Deity, or else it is false for him, or else it has no reference to him. In the last instance God is Chaos; in the second he and man are in organic contradiction, and he created man so; the first is the one now advocated. The second and third hypotheses refute themselves in the statement of them. Nothing remains but the position taken that the laws of Logic lie equally on God and man. One of those laws is, that, if any assertion is true, all that is logically involved in it is true; in other words, all truth is in absolute and perfect harmony. This is fundamental to the possibility of Logic. Now apply this law to the psychological premiss of Mr. Spencer, that we have a positive knowledge that the Absolute is. A better form of expression would be, The absolute Being is. It follows then that he is in a mode, has a formal being. But three hypotheses are possible. He is in no mode, he is in one mode; he is in all modes. If he is in no mode, there is no form, no order, no law for his being; which is to say, he is Chaos. Chaos is not God, for Chaos cannot organize an orderly being, and men are orderly beings, and were created. If he is in all modes, he is in a state of utter contradiction. God "is all in every part." He is then all infinite, and all finite. Infinity and finiteness are contradictory and mutually exclusive qualities. God is wholly possessed of contradictory and mutually exclusive qualities, which is more than unthinkable—it is absurd. He is, must be, then, in one mode. Let us pause here for a moment and observe that we have clearly established, from Mr. Spencer's own premiss, the fact that God is limited. He must be in one mode to the exclusion of all other modes. He is limited then by the necessity to be what he is; and if he could become what he is not, he would not have been absolute. Since he is absolute, he is, to the exclusion of the possibility of any other independent Being. Other beings are, and must therefore be, dependent on and subordinate to him. Since he is superior to all other beings he must be in the highest possible mode of being. Personality is the highest possible mode of being. This will appear from the following considerations. A person, possesses the reason and law of his action, and the capacity to act, within himself, and is thus a final cause. No higher form of being than this can be needed, and so by the law of parsimony a hypothesis of any other must be excluded. God is then a person.

We have now brought the argument to that point where its connection with the system advocated in this treatise is manifest. If the links are well wrought, and the chain complete, not only is this system firmly grounded upon Mr. Spencer's premiss, but, as was intimated on an early page, he has in this his special point given partial utterance to what, once established, involves the fallacy not only of all he has written before, but as well of the whole Limitist Philosophy. It remains now to remark upon the errors in his form of expressing the truth.

2. Mr. Spencer's error is twofold. He treats of consciousness as a faculty of knowledge. He speaks of a "vague," an "indefinite consciousness." Let us examine these in their order.

a. He treats of consciousness as a faculty of knowledge. In this he uses the term in the inexact, careless, popular manner, rather than with due precision. As has been observed on a former page, consciousness is the light in which the person sees his faculties act. Thus some feeling is affected. This feeling is cognized by the intellectual faculty, and of this the person is conscious. Hence it is an elliptical expression to say "I am conscious of the feeling." The full form being "I am conscious that I know the feeling." Thus is it with all man's activities. Applying this to the case in hand, it appears, not that we are conscious of the Absolute, but that we are conscious that the proper intellectual faculty, the Pure Reason, presents what absoluteness is, and that the absolute Person is, and through this presentation—intuition—the spiritual person knows these facts. We repeat, then, our position: consciousness is the indivisible unity, the light in which the person sees all his faculties and capacities act; and so is to be considered as different in kind from them all as the peculiar and unique endowment of a spiritual person.