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 H. JONES

"Give me to see, that I may know where to strike."

NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR BY HURD AND HOUGHTON.
BOSTON: NICHOLS AND NOYES
1865.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by
Jesse H. Jones, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY
H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.

Dedication.
TO MY FELLOW-STUDENTS AND FRIENDS OF ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL
SEMINARY WHO HAVE READ MANSEL AND REJECTED
HIS TEACHINGS,
This Little Treatise
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR.

Contents

[PREFACE.]
[KNOW THE TRUTH.]
[PART I.]
[PART II.]
[PART III.]
[REVIEW OF "LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT."]
[REVIEW OF MR. HERBERT SPENCER'S "FIRST PRINCIPLES."]
["ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS."]
["ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS."]
["THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE."]
["THE RECONCILIATION."]
[CONCLUSION.]

PREFACE.

This book has been written simply in the interest of Truth. It was because the doctrines of the Hamiltonian School were believed to be dangerous errors, which this process of thought exposes, that it was undertaken.

Logically, and in the final analysis, there can be but two systems of philosophical theology in the world. The one will be Pantheism, or Atheism,—both of which contain the same essential principle, but viewed from different standpoints,—the other will be a pure Theism. In the schools of Brahma and Buddh, or in the schools of Christ, the truth is to be found. And this is so because every teacher is to be held responsible for all which can be logically deduced from his system; and every erroneous result which can be so deduced is decisive of the presence of an error in principle in the foundation; and all schemes of philosophy, by such a trial, are seen to be based on one of these two classes of schools. Just here a quotation from Dr. Laurens Hickok's "Rational Psychology" will be in point:

"Except as we determine the absolute to be personality wholly out of and beyond all the conditions and modes of space and time, we can by no possibility leave nature for the supernatural. The clear-sighted and honest intellect, resting in this conclusion that the conditions of space and time cannot be transcended, will be Atheistic; while the deluded intellect, which has put the false play of the discursive understanding in its abstract speculations for the decisions of an all-embracing reason, and deems itself so fortunate as to have found a deity within the modes of space and time, will be Pantheistic. The Pantheism will be ideal and transcendent, when it reaches its conclusions by a logical process in the abstract law of thought; and it will be material and empiric, when it concludes from the fixed connections of cause and effect in the generalized law of nature; but in neither case is the Pantheism any other than Atheism, for the Deity, circumscribed in the conditions of space and time with nature, is but nature still, and, whether in abstract thought or generalized reality, is no God."

The Hamiltonian system is logically Atheism. Perceiving that the Deity cannot be found in Nature, it denies that he can be known at all. What the mind cannot know at all, it is irrational to believe. If man cannot know that God is, and have a clear sight of his attributes as a rational ground of confidence in what he says, it is the height of blind credulity to believe in him. And more; if man cannot have such knowledge, he has no standard by which to measure teachings, and be sure he has the truth. Under such circumstances, faith is impossible. Faith can only be based on Reason. If there is no Reason, there can be no faith. Hence he who talks about faith, and denies Reason, does not know what faith is. The logician rightfully held that God could not be found in Nature; but he was just as wrong in asserting that man is wholly in Nature and cannot know God, as he was right in the former instance. The acceptance of his one truth, and one error, compels man to be an Atheist; because then he has no faculty by which to know aught of God; and few thorough men will accept blind credulity as the basis of Religion.

The author's sense of obligation to President Hickok cannot be too strongly stated. But for his works, it is believed that this little treatise could never have been written. Indeed, the author looks for but scanty credit on the score of originality, since most of what he has written he has learned, directly or indirectly, from that profound thinker. He has deemed it his chief work, to apply the principles developed by others to the exposure of a great error. And if he shall be judged to have accomplished this, his ambition will have been satisfied.

After the substance of this treatise had been thought out, and while the author was committing it to paper, the essays on "Space and Time," and on "The Philosophy of the Unconditioned," in the numbers of the "North American Review" for July and October, 1864, happened to fall under his notice. Some persons will appreciate the delight and avidity with which he read them; and how grateful it was to an obscure student, almost wholly isolated in the world, to find the views which he had wrought out in his secluded chamber, so ably advocated in the leading review of his country. Not that he had gone as far, or examined the subjects in hand as thoroughly as has been there done. By no means. Rather what results he had attained accord with some of those therein laid down. Of those essays it is not too much to say, that, if they have not exhausted the topics of which they treat, they have settled forever the conclusions to be reached, and leave for other writers only illustration and comment. If the author shall seem to differ from them on a minor question,—that of quantitative infinity,—the difference will, it is believed, be found to be one of the form of expression only. And the difference is maintained from the conviction that no term in science should have more than one signification. It is better to adopt illimitable and indivisible, as the technical epithets of Space, in place of the commonly used terms infinite and absolute.

A metaphysical distinction has been incidentally touched upon in the following discussion, which deserves a more extensive consideration than the scope and plan of this work would permit to it here; and which, so far as the author's limited reading goes, has received very little attention from modern writers on metaphysics. He refers to the distinction between the animal nature and spiritual person, so repeatedly enounced by that profound metaphysical theologian, the apostle Paul, and by that pure spiritual pastor, the apostle John, in the terms "flesh" and "spirit." The thinkers of the world, even the best Christian philosophers, seem to have esteemed this a moral and religious distinction, and no more, when in fact it cleaves down through the whole human being, and forms the first great radical division in any proper analysis of man's soul, and classification of his constituent elements. This is a purely natural division. It is organic in man. It belonged as much to Adam in his purity, as it does to the most degraded wretch on the globe now. It is of such a character that, had it been properly understood and developed, the Hamiltonian system of philosophy could never have been constructed.

An adequate statement of the truth would be conducted as follows. First, the animal nature should be carefully analyzed, its province accurately defined, and both the laws and forms of its activity exactly stated. Second, a like examination of the spiritual person should follow; and third, the relations, interactions, and influences of the two parts upon each other should be, as extensively as possible, presented. But it is to be remarked, that, while the analysis, by the human intellect, of these two great departments of man's soul, may be exhaustive, it is doubtful if any but the All-seeing Eye can read all their relations and inter-communications. The development of the third point, by any one mind, must needs, therefore, be partial. Whether any portion of the above designated labor shall be hereafter entered upon, will depend upon circumstances beyond control of the writer.

As will appear, it is believed, in the development of the subject, the great, the vital point upon which the whole controversy with the Hamiltonian school must turn, is a question of fact; viz., whether man has a Reason, as the faculty giving a priori principles, or not. If he has such a Reason, then by it the questions now at issue can be settled, and that finally. If he has no Reason, then he can have no knowledge, except of appearances and events, as perceived by the Sense and judged by the Understanding. Until, then, the question of fact is decided, it would be a gain if public attention was confined wholly to it. Establish first a well ascertained and sure foundation before erecting a superstructure.

The method adopted in constructing this treatise does not admit the presentation of the matter in a symmetrical form. On the contrary, it involves some, perhaps many, repetitions. What has been said at one point respecting one author must be said again in reply to another. Yet the main object for which the work was undertaken could, it seemed, be thoroughly accomplished in no other way.

The author has in each case used American editions of the works named.

KNOW THE TRUTH.

PART I.

THE SEEKING AND THE FINDING.

In April, 1859, there was republished in Boston, from an English print, a volume entitled "The Limits of Religious Thought Examined," &c., "by Henry Longueville Mansel, B. D."

The high position occupied by the publishers,—a firm of Christian gentlemen, who, through a long career in the publication of books either devoutly religious, or, at least, having a high moral tone, and being marked by deep, earnest thought, have obtained the confidence of the religious community; the recommendations with which its advent was heralded, but most of all the intrinsic importance of the theme announced, and its consonance with many of the currents of mental activity in our midst,—gave the book an immediate and extensive circulation. Its subject lay at the foundation of all religious, and especially of all theological thinking. The author, basing his teaching on certain metaphysical tenets, claimed to have circumscribed the boundary to all positive, and so valid effort of the human intellect in its upward surging towards the Deity, and to have been able to say, "Thus far canst thou come, and no farther, and here must thy proud waves be stayed." And this effort was declaredly made in the interest of religion. It was asserted that from such a ground only, as was therein sought to be established, could infidelity be successfully assailed and destroyed. Moreover, the writer was a learned and able divine in the Anglican Church, orthodox in his views; and his volume was composed of lectures delivered upon what is known as "The Bampton Foundation;"—a bequest of a clergyman, the income of which, under certain rules, he directed should be employed forever, in furthering the cause of Christ, by Divinity Lecture Sermons in Oxford. Such a book, on such a theme, by such a man, and composed under such auspices, would necessarily receive the almost universal attention of religious thinkers, and would mark an era in human thought. Such was the fact in this country. New England, the birthplace and home of American Theology, gave it her most careful and studious examination. And the West alike with the East pored over its pages, and wrought upon its knotty questions. Clergymen especially, and theological students, perused it with the earnestness of those who search for hid treasures. And what was the result? We do not hesitate to say that it was unqualified rejection. The book now takes its place among religious productions, not as a contribution to our positive knowledge, not as a practicable new road, surveyed out through the Unknown Regions of Thought, but rather as possessing only a negative value, as a monument of warning, erected at that point on the roadside where the writer branched off in his explorations, and on which is inscribed, "In this direction the truth cannot be found."

The stir which this book produced, naturally brought prominently to public attention a writer heretofore not extensively read in this country, Sir William Hamilton, upon whose metaphysical teachings the lecturer avowedly based his whole scheme. The doctrines of the metaphysician were subjected to the same scrutinizing analysis, which dissolved the enunciations of the divine; and they, like these, were pronounced "wanting." This decision was not reached or expressed in any extensive and exhaustive criticism of these writers; in which the errors of their principles and the revolting nature of the results they attained, were presented; but it rather was a shoot from the spontaneous and deep-seated conviction, that the whole scheme, of both teacher and pupil, was utterly insufficient to satisfy the craving of man's highest nature. It was rejected because it could not be received.

Something more than a year ago, and while the American theological mind, resting in the above-stated conviction, was absorbed in the tremendous interests connected with the Great Rebellion, a new aspirant for honors appeared upon the stage. A book was published entitled "The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer: First Principles." This was announced as the foundation of a new system of Philosophy, which would command the confidence of the present, and extort the wonder of all succeeding ages. Avowing the same general principles with Mansel and Hamilton, this writer professed to have found a radical defect in their system, which being corrected, rendered that system complete and final; so that, from it as a base, he sets out to construct a new scheme of Universal Science. This man, too, has been read, not so extensively as his predecessors; because when one has seen a geometrical absurdity demonstrated, he does not care, unless from professional motives, to examine and disprove further attempts to bolster up the folly; but still so widely read, as to be generally associated with the other writers above mentioned, and, like them, rejected. Upon being examined, he is found to be a man of less scope and mental muscle than either of his teachers; yet going over the same ground and expressing the same ideas, scarcely in new language even; and it further appears that his discovery is made at the expense of his logic and consistency, and involves an unpardonable contradiction. Previous to the publication of the books just mentioned, an American writer had submitted to the world a system of thought upon the questions of which they treat, which certainly seems worthy of some notice from their authors. Yet it has received none. To introduce him we must retrace our steps for a little.

In 1848, Laurens P. Hickok, then a Professor in Auburn Theological Seminary, published a work entitled "Rational Psychology," in which he professed to establish, by a priori processes, positions which, if true, afford a ground for the answer, at once and forever, of all the difficulties raised by Sir William Hamilton and his school. Being comparatively a new writer, his work attracted only a moiety of the attention it should have done. It was too much like Analytical Geometry and Calculus for the popular mind, or even for any but a few patient thinkers. For them it was marrow and fatness.

Since the followers of Sir William Hamilton, whom we will hereafter term Limitists, have neglected to take the great truths enunciated by the American metaphysician, and apply them to their own system, and so be convinced by their own study of the worthlessness of that system, it becomes their opponents, in the interest of truth, to perform this work in their stead; viz., upon the basis of immutable truth, to unravel each of their well-knit sophistries, to show to the world that it may "know the truth;" and thus to destroy a system which, if allowed undisputed sway, would sap the very foundations of Christian faith.

The philosophical system of the Limitists is built upon a single fundamental proposition, which carries all their deductions with it. He who would strike these effectually, must aim his blow, and give it with all his might, straight at that one object; sure that if he destroys that, the destruction of the whole fabric is involved therein. But, as the Limitists are determined not to confess the dissolution of their scheme, by the simple establishment of principles, which they cannot prove false, and which, if true, involve the absurdity of their own tenets, it is further necessary to go through their writings, and examine them passage by passage, and show the fallacy of each. In the former direction we can but re-utter some of the principles of the great American teacher. In the latter there is room for new effort; and this shall be our especial province.

The proposition upon which the whole scheme of the Limitists is founded, was originally enunciated by Sir William Hamilton, in the following terms. "The Unconditioned is incognizable and inconceivable; its notion being only negative of the conditioned, which last can alone be positively known or conceived." "In our opinion, the mind can conceive, and consequently can know, only the limited and the conditionally limited. The unconditionally unlimited, or the Infinite, the unconditionally limited, or the Absolute, cannot positively be construed to the mind; they can be conceived only by a thinking away from, or abstraction of, those very conditions under which thought itself is realized; consequently, the notion of the Unconditioned is only negative—negative of the conceivable itself. For example, on the one hand we can positively conceive, neither an absolute whole, that is, a whole so great, that we cannot also conceive it as a relative part of a still greater whole; nor an absolute part, that is, a part so small, that we cannot also conceive it as a relative whole, divisible into smaller parts. On the other hand, we cannot positively represent, or realize, or construe to the mind, (as here understanding and imagination coincide,) an infinite whole, for this could only be done by the infinite synthesis in thought of finite wholes, which would itself require an infinite time for its accomplishment; nor, for the same reason, can we follow out in thought an infinite divisibility of parts.... As the conditionally limited (which we may briefly call the conditioned) is thus the only possible object of knowledge, and of positive thought—thought necessarily supposes conditions. To think is to condition; and conditional limitation is the fundamental law of the possibility of thought." ... "The conditioned is the mean between two extremes—two inconditionates, exclusive of each other, neither of which can be conceived as possible, but of which, on the principles of contradiction and excluded middle, one must be admitted as necessary."

This theory may be epitomized as follows:—"The Unconditioned denotes the genus of which the Infinite and Absolute are the species." This genus is inconceivable, is "negative of the conceivable itself." Hence both the species must be so also. Although they are thus incognizable, they may be defined; the one, the Infinite, as "that which is beyond all limits;" the other, the Absolute, as "a whole beyond all conditions:" or, concisely, the one is illimitable immensity, the other, unconditional totality. As defined, these are seen to be "mutually repugnant:" that is, if there is illimitable immensity, there cannot be absolute totality; and the reverse. Within these two all possible being is included; and, because either excludes the other, it can be in only one. Since both are inconceivable we can never know in which the conditioned or conceivable being is. Either would give us a being—God—capable of accounting for the Universe. This fact is assumed to be a sufficient ground for faith; and man may therefore rationally satisfy himself with the study of those matters which are cognizable—the conditioned.

It is not our purpose at this point to enter upon a criticism of the philosophical theory thus enounced. This will fall, in the natural course, upon a subsequent page. We have stated it here, for the purpose of placing in that strong light which it deserves, another topic, which has received altogether too little attention from the opponents of the Limitists. Underlying and involved in the above theory, there is a question of fact, of the utmost importance. Sir William Hamilton's metaphysic rests upon his psychology; and if his psychology is true, his system is impregnable. It is his diagnosis of the human mind, then, which demands our attention. He has presented this in the following passage:—

"While we regard as conclusive Kant's analysis of Time and Space into conditions of thought, we cannot help viewing his deduction of the 'Categories of Understanding' and the 'Ideas of Speculative Reason' as the work of a great but perverse ingenuity. The categories of understanding are merely subordinate forms of the conditioned. Why not, therefore, generalize the Conditioned—Existence Conditioned, as the supreme category, or categories, of thought?—and if it were necessary to analyze this form into its subaltern applications, why not develop these immediately out of the generic principle, instead of preposterously, and by a forced and partial analogy, deducing the laws of the understanding from a questionable division of logical proposition? Why distinguish Reason (Vernunft) from Understanding (Verstand), simply on the ground that the former is conversant about, or rather tends toward, the unconditioned; when it is sufficiently apparent, that the unconditioned is conceived as the negation of the conditioned, and also that the conception of contradictories is one? In the Kantian philosophy, both faculties perform the same function, both seek the one in the many;—the Idea (Idee) is only the Concept (Begriff) sublimated into the inconceivable; Reason only the Understanding which has 'overleaped itself.'"

Not stopping now to correct the entirely erroneous statement that "both faculties," i. e., Understanding and Reason, "perform the same function," we are to notice the two leading points which are made, viz.:—1. That there is no distinction between the Understanding and the Reason; or, in other words, there is no such faculty as the Reason is claimed to be, there is none but the Understanding; and, 2. A generalization is the highest form of human knowledge; both of which may be comprised in one affirmation; the Understanding is the highest faculty of knowledge belonging to the human soul. Upon this, a class of thinkers, following Plato and Kant, take issue with the logician, and assert that the distinction between the two faculties named above, has a substantial basis; that, in fact, they are different in kind, and that the mode of activity in the one is wholly unlike the mode of activity in the other. Thus, then, is the great issue between the Hamiltonian and Platonic schools made upon a question of fact. He who would attack the former school successfully, must aim his blow straight at their fundamental assumption; and he who shall establish the fact of the Pure Reason as an unquestionable faculty in the human soul, will, in such establishment, accomplish the destruction of the Hamiltonian system of philosophy. Believing this system to be thoroughly vicious in its tendencies; being such indeed, as would, if carried out, undermine the whole Christian religion; and what is of equal importance, being false to the facts in man's soul as God's creature, the writer will attempt to achieve the just named and so desirable result; and by the mode heretofore indicated.

It is required, then, to prove that there is a faculty belonging to the human soul, essentially diverse from the Sense or the Understanding; a faculty peculiar and unique, which possesses such qualities as have commonly been ascribed by its advocates to the Pure Reason; and thereby to establish such faculty as a fact, and under that name.

Previous to bringing forward any proofs, it is important to make an exact statement of what is to be proved. To this end, let the following points be noted:—

a. Its modes of activity are essentially diverse from those of the Sense or Understanding. The Sense is only capacity. According to the laws of its construction, it receives impressions from objects, either material, and so in a different place from that which it occupies, or imaginary, and so proceeding from the imaging faculty in itself. But it is only capacity to receive and transmit impressions. The Understanding, though more than this, even faculty, is faculty shut within the limits of the Sense. According to its laws, it takes up the presentations of the Sense, analyzes and classifies them, and deduces conclusions: but it can attain to nothing more than was already in the objects presented. It can construct a system; it cannot develop a science. It can observe a relation it cannot intuit a law. What we seek is capacity, but of another and higher kind from that of the Sense. Sense can have no object except such, at least, as is constructed out of impressions received from without. What we seek does not observe outside phenomena; and can have no object except as inherent within itself. It is faculty moreover, but not faculty walled in by the Sense. It is faculty and capacity in one, which, possessing inherent within itself, as objects, the a priori conditional laws of the Universe, and the a priori conditional ideal forms which these laws, standing together according to their necessary relations, compose, transcends, in its activity and acquisitions, all limitations of a Nature; and attends to objects which belong to the Supernatural, and hence which absoluteness qualifies. We observe, therefore,

b. The objects of its activity are also essentially diverse in kind from those of the Sense and the Understanding. All the objects of the Sense must come primarily or secondarily, from a material Universe; and the discussions and conclusions of the Understanding must refer to such a Universe. The faculty which we seek must have for its objects, laws, or, if the term suit better, first principles, which are reasons why conduct must be one way, and not another; which, in their combinations, compose the forms conditional for all activity; and which, therefore, constitute within us an a priori standard by which to determine the validity of all judgments. To illustrate. Linnæus constructed a system of botanical classification, upon the basis of the number of stamens in a flower. This was satisfactory to the Sense and the Understanding. Later students have, however, discovered that certain organic laws extend as a framework through the whole vegetable kingdom; which, once seen, throw back the Linnæan system into company with the Ptolemaic Astronomy; and upon which laws a science of Botany becomes possible. That faculty which intuits these laws, is called the Pure Reason.

To recapitulate. What we seek is, in its modes and objects of activity, diverse from the Sense and Understanding. It is at once capacity and faculty, having as object first principles, possessing these as an inherent heritage, and able to compare with them as standard all objects of the Sense and judgments of the Understanding; and to decide thereby their validity. These principles, and combinations of principles, are known as Ideas, and, being innate, are denominated innate Ideas. It is their reality which Sir William Hamilton denies, declaring them to be only higher generalizations of the Understanding, and it is the faculty called the Pure Reason, in which they are supposed to inhere, whose actuality is now to be proved.

The effort to do this will be successful if it can be shown that the logician's statement of the facts is partial, and essentially defective; what are the phenomena which cannot be comprehended in his scheme; and, finally, that they can be accounted for on no other ground than that stated.

1. The statement of facts by the Limitists is partial and essentially defective. They start with the assumption that a generalization is the highest form of human knowledge. To appreciate this fully, let us examine the process they thus exalt. A generalization is a process of thought through which one advances from a discursus among facts, to a conclusion, embodying a seemingly general truth, common to all the facts of the class. For instance. The inhabitants of the north temperate zone have long observed it to be a fact, that north winds are cold; and so have arrived at the general conclusion that such winds will lower the temperature. A more extensive experience teaches them, however, that in the south temperate zone, north winds are warm, and their judgment has to be modified accordingly. A yet larger investigation shows that, at one period in geologic history, north winds, even in northern climes, were warm, and that tropical animals flourished in arctic regions; and the judgment is again modified. Now observe this most important fact here brought out. Every judgment may be modified by a larger experience. Apply this to another class of facts. An apple is seen to fall when detached from the parent stem. An arrow, projected into the air, returns again. An invisible force keeps the moon in its orbit. Other like phenomena are observed; and, after patient investigation, it is found to be a fact, that there is a force in the system to which our planet belongs, which acts in a ratio inverse to the square of the distance, and which thus binds it together. But if a generalization is the highest form of knowledge, we can never be sure we are right, for a subsequent experience may teach us the reverse. We know we have not all the facts. We may again find that the north wind is elsewhere, or was once here, warm. Should a being come flying to us from another sphere so distant, that the largest telescope could catch no faintest ray, even, of its shining, and testify to us that there, the force we called gravitation, was inversely as the cube of the distance, we could only accept the testimony, and modify our judgment accordingly. Conclusions of to-day may be errors to-morrow; and we can never know we are right. The Limitists permit us only interminable examinations of interminable changes in phenomena; which afford no higher result than a new basis for new studies.

From this wearisome, Io-like wandering, the soul returns to itself, crying its wailing cry, "Is this true? Is this all?" when suddenly, as if frenzied by the presence of a god, it shouts exultingly "The truth! the truth! I see the eternal truth."

The assumption of the Limitists is not all the truth. Their diagnosis is both defective and false. It is defective, in that they have failed to perceive those qualities of universality and necessity, which most men instinctively accord to certain perceptions of the mind; and false, in that they deny the reality of those qualities, and of the certain perceptions as modified by them, and the actuality of that mental faculty which gives the perceptions, and thus qualified. They state a part of the truth, and deny a part. The whole truth is, the mind both generalizes and intuits.

It is the essential tenet of their whole scheme, that the human mind nowhere, and under no circumstance, makes an affirmation which it unreservedly qualifies as necessary and universal. Their doctrine is, that these affirmations seem to be such, but that a searching examination shows this seeming to be only a bank of fog. For instance. The mind seems to affirm that two and two must make four. "Not so," says the Limitist. "As a fact, we see that two and two do make four, but it may make five, or any other sum. For don't you see? if two and two must make four, then the Infinite must see it so; and if he must see it so, he is thereby conditioned; and what is worse, we know just as much about it as he does." In reply to all such quibbles, it is to be said,—there is no seeming about it! If the mind is not utterly mendacious, it affirms, positively and unreservedly, "Two and two are four, must be four; and to see it so, is conditional for all intellect." Take another illustration. The mind instinctively, often unconsciously, always compulsorily, affirms that the sentiment, In society the rights of the individual can never trench upon the rights of the body politic,—is a necessary, and universally applicable principle; which, however much it may be violated, can never be changed. The whole fabric of society is based upon this. Could a mind think this away, it could not construct a practical system of society upon what would be left,—its negation. But the Limitists step in here, and say, "All this seems so, perhaps, but then the mind is so weak, that it can never be sure. You must modify (correct?) this seeming, by the consideration that, if it is so, then the Infinite must know it so, and the finite and Infinite must know it alike, and the Infinite will be limited and conditioned thereby, which would be impious." Again, the intellect unreservedly asserts, "There is no seeming in the matter. The utterance is true, absolutely and universally true, and every intellect must see it so."

Illustrations like the above might be drawn from every science of which the human mind is cognizant. But more are not needed. Enough has been adduced to establish the fact of those qualities, universality and necessity, as inherent in certain mental affirmations. Having thus pointed out the essential defect of the logician's scheme, it is required to state:

2. What the phenomena are which cannot be comprehended therein.

In general, it may be said that all those perceptions and assertions of the mind, which are instinctive, and which it involuntarily qualifies as universal and necessary, are not, and cannot be comprehended in Sir William Hamilton's scheme. To give an exhaustive presentation of all the a priori laws of the mind, would be beyond the scope of the present undertaking, and would be unnecessary to its success. This will be secured by presenting a classification of them, and sufficient examples under each class. Moreover, to avoid a labor which would not be in place here, we shall attempt no new classification; but shall accept without question, as ample for our purpose, that set forth by one of our purest and every way best thinkers,—Rev. Mark Hopkins, D. D., President of Williams College, Mass.

"The ideas and beliefs which come to us thus, may be divided into, first, mathematical ideas and axioms. These are at the foundation of the abstract sciences, having for their subject, quantity. In the second division are those which pertain to mere being and its relations. Upon these rest all sciences pertaining to actual being and its relations. The third division comprises those which pertain to beauty. These are at the foundation of æsthetical science. In the fourth division are those which pertain to morals and religion. Of these the pervading element is the sense of obligation or duty. Of this the idea necessarily arises in connection with the choice by a rational being of a supreme end, and with the performance of actions supposed to bear upon that."—Moral Science, p. 161.

First.—Mathematical ideas and axioms.

Take, for instance, the multiplication table. Can any one, except a Limitist, be induced to believe that it was originally constructed; that a will put it together, and might take it apart? Seven times seven now make forty-nine. Will any one say that it might have been made to make forty-seven; or that at some future time such may be the case? Or again, take the axiom "Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another." Will some one say, that the intellectual beings in the universe might, with equal propriety, have been so constructed as to affirm that, in some instances, things which are equal to the same thing are unequal to one another? Or consider the properties of a triangle. Will our limitist teachers instruct us that these properties are a matter of indifference; that for aught we know, the triangle might have been made to have three right angles? Yet again. Examine the syllogism. Was its law constructed?

All M is X;
All Z is M;
All Z is X.

Will any one say that perhaps, we don't know but it might have been so made, as to appear to us that the conclusion was Some Z is not X? Or will the Limitists run into that miserable petty subterfuge of an assertion, "All this seems to us as it is, and we cannot see how it could be different; but then, our minds are so feeble, they are confined in such narrow limits, that it would be the height of presumption to assert positively with regard to stronger minds, and those of wider scope? Perhaps they see things differently." Perhaps they do; but if they do, their minds or ours falsify! The question is one of veracity, nothing more. Throughout all the range of mathematics, the positive and unqualified affirmation of the mind is that its intuitions are absolute and universal; that they are a priori laws conditional of all intellect; that of the Deity just as much as that of man. Feebleness and want of scope have nothing to do with mind in its affirmation, "Seven times seven must make forty-nine; and cannot by any possibility of effort make any other product;" and every intellect, if it sees at all, must see it so. And so on through the catalogue. From this, it follows in this instance, that human knowledge is exhaustive, and so is exactly similar, and equal to the Deity's knowledge.

Second. Those ideas and beliefs which pertain to mere being and its relations.

Take, for instance, the axiom, A material body cannot exist in the Universe without standing in some relation to all the other material bodies in that Universe. Either this is absolutely true, or it is not. If it is so true, then every intellectual being to whom it presents itself as object at all, must see it as every other does. One may see more relations than another; but the axiom in its intrinsic nature must be seen alike by all. If it is not absolutely true, then the converse, or any partially contradictory proposition, may be true. For example. A material body may exist in the Universe, and stand in no relation to some of the other material bodies in that Universe. But, few men will hesitate to say, that this is not only utterly unthinkable, but that it could only become thinkable by a denial and destruction of the laws of thought; or, in other words, by the stultification of the mind.

Take another instance, arising from the fact of parentage and offspring, in the sentient beings of the world. A pair, no matter to what class they belong, by the fact of becoming parents, establish a new relation for themselves; and, "after their kind," they are under bonds to their young. And, to a greater or less extent, their young have a claim upon them. As we ascend in the scale of being, the duty imposed is greater, and the claim of the offspring stronger. Whether it be the fierce eagle, or the timid dove, or the chirping sparrow; whether it be the prowling lion, or the distrustful deer, or the cowering hare; or whether it be the races of man who are examined, the relations established by parentage are everywhere recognized. Now, will one say that all this might be changed for aught we know; that, what we call law, is only a judgment of mankind; and so that this relation did not exist at first, but was the product of growth? And will one further say that there is no necessity or universality in this relation; but that the races might, for aught we know, have just as well been established with a parentage which involved no relation at all; that the fabled indifference of the ostrich, intensified a hundredfold, might have been the law of sentient being? Yet such results logically flow from the principles of the Limitists. Precisely the same line of argument might be pursued respecting the laws of human society. But it is not needed here. It is evident now, that what gives validity to judgments is the fact that they accord with an a priori principle in the mind.

Third. The ideas and beliefs which pertain to beauty. A science of beauty has not yet been sufficiently developed to permit of so extensive an illustration of this class as the others. Yet enough is established for our purpose. Let us consider beauty as in proportioned form. It is said that certain Greek mathematicians, subsequently to the Christian era, studied out a mathematical formula for the human body, and constructed a statue according to it; and that both were pronounced at the time perfect. Both statue and formula are now lost. Be the story true, or a legend, there is valid ground for the assertion, that the mind instinctively assumes, in all its criticisms, the axiom, There is a perfect ideal by which as standard, all art must be judged. The very fact that the mind, though acknowledging the imperfection of its own ideal, unconsciously asserts, that somewhere, in some mind, there is an ideal, in which a perfect hand joins a perfect arm, and a perfect foot a perfect leg, and these a perfect trunk; and a perfect neck supports a perfect head, adorned by perfect features, and thus there is a perfect ideal, is decisive that such an ideal exists. And this conclusion is true, because God who made us, and constructed the ground from whence this instinctive affirmation springs, is true.

Take another instance. Few men, who have studied Gothic spires, have failed to observe that the height of some, in proportion to their base, is too great, and that of others, too small. The mind irresistibly affirms, that between these opposite imperfections, there is a golden mean, at which the proportion shall be perfect. When the formula of this proportion shall be studied out, any workman, who is skilled with tools, can construct a perfect spire. The law once discovered and promulgated, becomes common knowledge. Mechanical skill will be all that can differentiate one workman from another. The fact that the law has not been discovered yet, throws no discredit upon the positive affirmation of the mind, that there must be such a law; any more than the fact of Newton's ignorance of the law of gravitation, when he saw the apple fall, discredited his instinctive affirmation, upon seeing that phenomenon, there is a law in accordance with which it fell.

Now how comes the mind instinctively and positively to make these assertions. If they were judgments, the mind would only speak of probabilities; but here, it qualifies the assertion with necessity. Men, however positive in their temperament, do not say, "I know it will rain to-morrow," but only, "In all probability it will." Not so here. Here the mind refuses to express itself doubtfully. Its utterance is the extreme of positiveness. It says must. And if its affirmation is not true, then there is no reason why those works of art which are held in highest esteem, should be adjudged better than the efforts of the tyro, except the whim of the individual, or the arbitrary determination of their admirers.

Fourth. The ideas and beliefs which pertain to morals and religion.

We now enter a sphere of which no understanding could by any possibility ever guess, much less investigate. Here no sense could ever penetrate; there is no object for it to perceive. Here all judgments are impertinent; for in this sphere are only laws, and duties, and obligations. An understanding cannot "conceive" of a moral law, because such a law is inconceivable; and it cannot perceive one, because it has no eye. If it were competent to explain every phenomenon in the other classes, it would be utterly impotent to explain a single phenomenon in this. What is moral obligation? Whence does it arise, or how is it imposed? and who will enforce it, and how will it be enforced? All these, and numerous such other questions, cannot be raised even by the Understanding, much less answered by it. The moral law of the Universe is one which can be learned from no judgment, or combination of judgments. It can be learned only by being seen. The moral law is no conclusion, which may be modified by a subsequent experience. It is an affirmation which is imperative. To illustrate. It is an axiom, that the fact of free moral agency involves the fact of obligation. Man is a free moral agent; and so, under the obligation imposed. At the first, it was optional with the Deity whether he would create man or not. But will any one assert that, having determined to create man such as he is, it was optional with him, whether man should be under the obligation, or not? Can man be a free moral agent, and be free from the duties inherent therein? Does not the mind instinctively and necessarily affirm, that the fact of free moral agency assures the fact of such a relation to God's moral government, that obligation must follow? One cannot hesitate to say, that the formula, A free agent may be released from his obligation to moral law, is absolutely unthinkable.

Again, no judgment can attain to the moral law of the Universe; and yet man knows it. Jesus Christ, when he proclaimed that law in the words "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself," only uttered what no man can, in thought, deny. A man can no more think selfishness as the moral law of the Universe, than he can think two and two to be five. Man not only sees the law, but he feels and acknowledges the obligation, even in his rebellion. In fact there would be no rebellion, no sense of sin, if there were no obligation. Whence comes the authority of the law? No power can give it authority, or enforce obedience. Power can crush a Universe, it cannot change a heart. The law has, and can have authority; it imposes, and can impose obligation; only because it is an a priori law of the Universe, alike binding upon all moral beings, upon God as well as man; and is so seen immediately, and necessarily, by a direct intuition. Man finds this law fundamental to his self; and as well, a necessarily fundamental law of all moral beings. Therefore he acknowledges it. And the very efforts he makes to set up a throne for Passion, over against the throne of Benevolence, is an involuntary acknowledgment of the authority of that law he seeks to rival.

It was said above, that neither Sense nor Understanding can take any cognizance of the objects of investigation which fall in this class. This is because the Sense can gather no material over which the Understanding can run. Is the moral law matter? No. How then can the Sense observe it? One answer may possibly be made, viz.: It is deduced from the conduct of men; and sense observes that. To this it is replied

a. The allegation is not true. Most men violate the moral law of the Universe. Their conduct accords with the law of selfishness. Such conclusions as that of Hobbes, that war is the natural condition of Society, are those which would follow from a consideration of man, as he appears to the Sense.

b. If it were true, the question obtrudes itself,—How came it there? How came this fundamental law to be? and to this the Sense and Understanding return no shadow of answer.

But from the stand-point of a Pure Reason, all is clear. All the ideas and beliefs, every process of thought which belongs to this sphere, are absolute and universal. They must be what they are; and so are conditional of all moral beings. Here what the human mind sees, is just what the Deity sees; and it sees just as the Divine mind sees, so that the truth, as far as so seen, is common to both.

Although the facts which have been adduced above, are inexplicable by the Limitists, and are decisive of the actuality of the Reason, as it has been heretofore described, yet another line of argument of great wight must not be omitted. There are in language certain positive terms, which the Limitists, and the advocates of the Reason agree in asserting cannot convey any meaning to, or be explained by the Sense and Understanding. Such are the words infinite and absolute. The mere presence of such words in language, as positive terms, is a decisive evidence of the fact, that there is also a faculty which entertains positive ideas corresponding to them. Sir William Hamilton's position in this matter, is not only erroneous, but astonishing. He asserts that these words express only "negative notions." "They," the infinite and absolute, "can be conceived only by a thinking away from, or abstraction of, those very conditions under which thought itself is realized; consequently, the notion of the Unconditioned is only negative—negative of the conceivable itself." But, if this is true, how came these words in the language at all? Negative ideas produce negative expressions. Indeed, the Limitists are confidently challenged to designate another case in language, in which a positive term can be alleged to have a purely negative signification. Take an illustration to which we shall recur further on. The question has been raised, whether a sixth sense can be. Can the Limitists find in language, or can they construct, a positive term which will represent the negation of a sixth sense? We find in language the positive terms, ear and hearing; but can such positive terms be found, which will correspond to the phrase, no sixth sense? In this instance, in physics, the absurdity is seen at once. Why is not as readily seen the equal absurdity of affirming that, in metaphysics, positive terms have grown up in the language which are simple negations? Here, for the present, the presentation of facts may rest. Let us recapitulate those which have been adduced. The axioms in mathematics, the principles of the relations of being, the laws of æsthetics, and most of all the whole system of principles pertaining to morals and religion, standing, as they do, a series of mental affirmations, which all mankind, except the Limitists, qualify as necessary and universal, compel assent to the proposition, that there must be a faculty different in kind from the Sense and Understanding,—for these have already been found impotent—which can be ground to account of all these facts satisfactorily. And the presence in language of such positive terms as absolute and infinite, is a most valuable auxiliary argument. The faculty which is required,—the faculty which qualifies all the products of its activity with the characteristics above named, is the Pure Reason. And its actuality may therefore be deemed established.

The Pure Reason having thus been proved to be, it is next required to show the mode of its activity. This can best be done, by first noticing the kind of results which it produces. The Reason gives us, not thoughts, but ideas. These are simple, pure, primary, necessary. It is evident that any such object of mental examination can be known only in, and by, itself. It cannot be analyzed, for it is simple. It cannot be compared, for it is pure; and so possesses no element which can be ground for a comparison. It cannot be deduced, for it is primary and necessary. It can only be seen. Such an object must be known under the following circumstances. It must be inherent in the seeing faculty, and must be immediately and directly seen by that faculty; all this in such a manner, that the abstraction of the object seen, would annihilate the faculty itself. Now, how is it with the Reason? Above we found it to be both capacity and faculty: capacity in that it possessed as integral elements, a priori first principles, as objects of sight; faculty in that it saw, brought forward, and made available, those principles. The mode of activity of the Pure Reason is then a seeing, direct, immediate, sure; which holds pure truth fast, right in the very centre of the field of vision. This act of the Reason in thus seeing pure truth is best denominated an intuition of the Reason. And here it may be said,—If perception and perceive could be strictly confined to the Sense; concept and conceive to the Understanding; and intuition and intuit to the Reason, a great gain would be made in accuracy of expression regarding these departments of the mind.

Having thus, as it is believed, established the fact of the existence of a Pure Reason, and shown the mode of its activity, it devolves to declare the function of that faculty.

The function of the Pure Reason is, first:—to intuit, by an immediate perception, the a priori elemental principles which condition all being; second,—to intuit, by a like immediate perception, those principles, combined in a priori systematic processes, which are the conditional ideal forms for all being; and third,—again to intuit, by another immediate perception, precisely similar in kind to the others, the fact, at least, of the perfectly harmonious combination of all a priori elemental principles, in all possible systematic processes, into a perfect unity,—an absolute, infinite Person,—God.

To illustrate.

1. The Reason asserts that "Malice is criminal;" and that it is necessarily criminal; or, in other words, that no act, of any will, can make it otherwise than it is. The assertion, then, that "Malice is criminal," is an axiom, and conditions all being, God as well as man.

2. The Reason asserts that every mathematical form must be seen in Space and Time, and it affirms the same necessity in this as in the former case.

3. The full illustration of this point would be Anselm's a priori argument for the existence of God. His statement of it should, however, be so modified as to appear, not as an a priori argument for the existence of God, but as an amplified declaration of the fact, that the existence of God is a first principle of Reason; and as such, can no more be denied than the multiplication table. Objection.—This doctrine degrades God to the level of the finite; both being alike conditioned. Answer.—By no means; as will be seen from the two following points.

1. It is universally acknowledged that God must be self-existent, which means, if it means anything, that the existence of God is beyond his own control; or, in other words, that self-existence is an a priori elemental principle, which conditions God's existing at all.

2. In the two instances under consideration, the word condition has entirely different significations. God is conditioned only by Himself. Not only is this conditioning not a limitation, properly speaking, but the very absence of limitation. The fact that He is absolute and infinite, is a condition of His existence. Man's conditions are the very opposite of these. He is relative, instead of absolute; finite, instead of infinite; dependent, instead of self-existent. Hence he differs in kind from God as do his conditions.

Such being the function of the Pure Reason, it is fully competent to solve the difficulties raised by Sir William Hamilton and his followers; and the statement of such solution is the work immediately in hand.

Much of the difficulty and obscurity which have, thus far, attended every discussion of this subject, will be removed by examining the definitions given to certain terms;—either by statement, or by implication in the use made of them;—by exposing the errors involved; and by clearly expressing the true signification of each term.

By way of criticism the general statement may be made,—that the Limitists—as was natural from their rejection of the faculty of the Pure Reason—use only such terms, and in such senses, as are pertinent to those subjects which come under the purvey of the Understanding and the Sense; but which are entirely impertinent, in reference to the sphere of spiritual subjects. The two following phases of this error are sufficient to illustrate the criticism.

1. The terms Infinite and Absolute are used to express abstractions. For instance, "the infinite, from a human point of view, is merely a name for the absence of those conditions under which thought is possible." "It is thus manifest that a consciousness of the Absolute is equally self-contradictory with that of the Infinite."—Limits of Religious Thought, pp. 94 and 96. If asked "Absolute" what? "Infinite" what? Will you allow person, or other definite term to be supplied? Mansel would reply—No! no possible answer can be given by man.

Now, without passing at all upon the question whether these terms can represent concrete objects of thought or not, it is to be said, that the use of them to express abstract notions, is utterly unsound. The mere fact of abstraction is an undoubted limitation. There may be an Infinite and Absolute Person. By no possibility can there be an abstract Infinite.

2. But a more glaring and unpardonable error is made by the Limitists in their use of the words infinite and absolute, as expressing quantity. Take a few examples from many.

"For example, we can positively conceive, neither an absolute whole, that is, a whole so great that we cannot also conceive it as a relative part of a still greater whole; nor an absolute part, that is, a part so small, that we cannot also conceive it as a relative whole, divisible into smaller parts. On the other hand, we cannot positively represent, or realize, or construe to the mind (as here understanding and imagination coincide), an infinite whole, for this could only be done by the infinite synthesis in thought of finite wholes which would itself require an infinite time for its accomplishment; nor, for the same reason, can we follow out in thought an infinite divisibility of parts."—Hamilton's Essays, p. 20.

"The metaphysical representation of the Deity as absolute and infinite, must necessarily, as the profoundest metaphysicians have acknowledged, amount to nothing less than the sum of all reality."—Limits of Religious Thought, p. 76.

"Is the First Cause finite or infinite?... To think of the First Cause as finite, is to think of it as limited. To think of it as limited, necessarily implies a conception of something beyond its limits; it is absolutely impossible to conceive a thing as bounded, without conceiving a region surrounding its boundaries."—Spencer's First Principles, p. 37.

The last extract tempts one to ask Mr. Spencer if he ever stood on the north side of the affections. Besides the extracts selected, any person reading the authors above named, will find numerous phrases like these: "infinite whole," "infinite sum," "infinite number," "infinite series," by which they express sometimes a mathematical, and sometimes a material amount.

Upon this whole topic it is to be said, that the terms infinite and absolute have, and can have, no relevancy to any object of the Sense or of the Understanding, judging according to the Sense, or to any number. There is no whole, no sum, no number, no amount, but is definite and limited; and to use those words with the word infinite, is as absurd as to say an infinite finite. And to use words thus, is to "multiply words without knowledge."

Again, the lines of thought which these writers pursue, do not tend in any degree to clear up the fogs in which they have lost themselves, but only make the muddle thicker. Take, for instance, the following extract:—

"Thus we are landed in an inextricable dilemma. The Absolute cannot be conceived as conscious, neither can it be conceived as unconscious; it cannot be conceived as complex, neither can it be conceived as simple; it cannot be conceived by difference, neither can it be conceived by the absence of difference; it cannot be identified with the Universe, neither can it be distinguished from it. The One and the Many, regarded as the beginning of existence, are thus alike incomprehensible."—Limits of Religious Thought, p. 79.

The soul, while oaring her way with weary wing, over the watery waste of such a philosophy, can find no rest for the sole of her foot, except on that floating carcase of a doctrine, Chaos is God. The simple fact that such confusion logically results from the premises of the Limitists, is a sufficient warrant for rejecting their whole system of thought,—principle and process; and for striking for a new base of operations. But where shall such a base be sought for? On what immutable Ararat can the soul find her ark, and a sure resting-place? Man seeks a Rock upon which he can climb and cry, I know that this is truth. Where is the Everlasting Rock? In our search for the answer to these queries, we may be aided by setting forth the goal to be reached,—the object to be obtained.

By observation and reflection man comes to know that he is living in, and forms part of, a system of things, which he comprehensively terms the Universe. The problem is,—To find an Ultimate Ground, a Final Cause, which shall be adequate to account for the existence and sustentation of this Universe. There are but two possible directions from which the solution of this problem can come. It must be found either within the Universe, or without the Universe.

Can it be found within the Universe? If it can, one of two positions must be true. Either a part of the Universe is cause for the existence of the whole of the Universe; or the Universe is self-existent. Upon the first position nothing need be said. Its absurdity is manifested in the very statement of it. A full discussion, or, in fact, anything more than a notice of the doctrine of Pantheism, set forth in the second point, would be beyond the intention of the author. The questions at issue lie not between theists and pantheists, but between those who alike reject Pantheism as erroneous. The writer confesses himself astonished that a class of rational men could ever have been found, who should have attempted to find the Ultimate Ground of the Universe in itself. All that man can know of the facts of the Universe, he learns by observation; and the sum of the knowledge he thus gains is, that a vast system of physical objects exists. From the facts observed, he draws conclusions: but the stream cannot rise higher than its fountain. With reference to any lesser object, as a watch, the same process goes on. A watch is. It has parts; and these parts move in definite relations to each other; and to secure a given object. If now, any person, upon being asked to account for the existence of the watch, should confine himself wholly to an examination of the nature of the springs, the wheels, the hands, face, &c., endeavoring to find the reason of its being within itself, the world would laugh at him. How much more justly may the world laugh, yea, shout its ridicule, at the mole-eyed man who rummages among the springs and wheels of the vast machine of the Universe, to find the reason of its being. In the former instance, the bystander would exclaim,—"The watch is an evidence of intelligence. Man is the only intelligent being on the earth; and is superior to the watch. Man made the watch." And his assertion would be true. A fortiori would a bystander of the Universe exclaim, "The Universe is an evidence of intelligence. An intelligent Being, superior to the Universe, made the Universe." And his assertion is true. We are driven then to our last position; but it is the Gibraltar of Philosophy.

The Ultimate Ground of the Universe must Be sought for, and can only be found, without the Universe.

From this starting-point alone can we proceed, with any hope of reaching the goal. Setting out on our new course we will gain a step by noticing a fact involved in the illustration just given. The bystander exclaims, "The watch is an evidence of intelligence." In this very utterance is necessarily expressed the fact of two diverse spheres of existence: the one the sphere of matter, the other the sphere of mind. One cannot think of matter except as inferior, nor of mind except as superior. These two, matter and mind, comprise all possible existence. The Reason not only cannot see how any other existence can be, but affirms that no other can be. Mind, then, is the Ultimate Ground of the Universe. What mind?

By examination, man perceives what appears to be an order in the Universe, concludes that there is such an order, assumes the conclusion to be valid, and names the order Nature. Turning his eye upon himself, he finds himself not only associated with, but, through a portion of his faculties, forming a part of that Nature. But a longer, sharper scrutiny, a profounder examination, reveals to him his soul's most secret depth; and the fact of his spiritual personality glows refulgent in the calm light of consciousness. He sees himself, indeed, in Nature; but he thrills with joy at the quickly acquired knowledge that Nature is only a nest, in which he, a purely supernatural being, must flutter for a time, until he shall be grown, and ready to plume his flight for the Spirit Land. If then, man, though bound in Nature, finds his central self utterly diverse from, and superior to Nature, so that he instinctively cries, "My soul is worth more than a Universe of gold and diamonds;" a fortiori must that Being, who is the Ultimate Ground, not only of Nature, but of those supernatural intelligences who live in Nature, be supernatural, spiritual, and supreme?

Just above, it was seen that matter and mind comprise all possible existence. It has now been found that mind, in its highest form, even in man, is pure spirit; and as such, wholly supernatural. It has further been determined, that the object of our search must be the Supreme Spirit.

Just at this point it is suitable to notice, what is, perhaps, the most egregious and unpardonable blunder the Limitists have made. In order to do this satisfactorily, the following analysis of the human mind is presented. The soul is a spiritual person, and an animal nature. To this animal nature belong the Sense and the Understanding. It is universally acknowledged,—at least the Limitists will not deny,—that the Sense and the Understanding are wholly within, and conditioned by Nature. Observe then their folly. They deny that a part can account for a whole; they reject Pantheism; and yet they employ only those faculties which they confess are wholly within and conditioned by Nature—for they deny the existence of the Pure Reason, the perceptive faculty of the spiritual person—to search, only in Nature, for the cause of Nature. A fly would buzz among the wheels of a clock to as little purpose.

The result arrived at just above, now claims our careful attention.

The Ultimate Ground of the Universe is the Supreme Spirit.

To appreciate this result, we must return to our analysis of man. In his spiritual personality we have found him wholly supernatural. We have further found that, only as a spiritual person is he capable of pursuing this investigation to a final and valid termination. If, then, we would complete our undertaking, we must ascend into a sphere whose light no eagle's eye can ever bear; and whose atmosphere his daring wing can never beat. There no sense can ever enter; no judgments are needed. Through Reason—the soul's far-darting eye,—and through Reason alone, can we gaze on the Immutable.

Turning this searching eye upon ourselves, we find that man, as spiritual person, is a Pure Reason,—the faculty which gives him a priori first principles, as the standard for conduct and the forms for activity,—a Spiritual Sensibility, which answers with emotive music to the call of the Reason; and lastly, a Will, in which the Person dwells central, solitary, and supreme, the final arbiter of its own destiny. Every such being is therefore a miniature final cause.

The goal of our search must be near at hand. In man appears the very likeness of the Being we seek. His highest powers unmistakably shadow forth the form of that Being, who is The Final. Man originates; but he is dependent for his power, and the sphere of that power is confined to his own soul. We seek a being who can originate, who is utterly independent; and the sphere of whose activity extends wherever, without himself, he chooses. Man, after a process of culture, comes to intuit some first principles, in some combinations. We seek a being who necessarily sees, at once and forever, all possible first principles, in all possible relations, as the ideal forms for all possible effort. Man stumbles along on the road of life, frequently ignorant of the way, but more frequently perversely violating the eternal law which he finds written on his heart. We seek a being who never stumbles, but who is perfectly wise; and whose conduct is in immutable accord with the a priori standards of his Reason. Man is a spiritual person, dependent for existence, and limited to himself in his exertions. He whom we seek will be found to be also a spiritual person who is self-existent, and who sets his own bounds to his activity.

That the line of thought we are now pursuing is the true one, and that the result which we approach, and are about to utter, is well founded, receives decisive confirmation from the following facts. Man perceives that malice must be criminal. Just so the Eternal Eye must see it. A similar remark is true of mathematical, and all other a priori laws. Sometimes, at least, there awakens in man's bosom the unutterable thrill of benevolence; and thus he tastes of the crystal river which flows, calmly and forever, through the bosom of the "Everlasting Father." For his own conduct, man is the final cause. In this is he, must he be, the likeness of the Ultimate. Spiritual personality is the highest possible form of being. It is then a form common to God and man. Here, therefore, Philosophy and Revelation are at one. With startling, and yet grateful unanimity, they affirm the solemn truth, "God made man in his own image."

We reach the goal at last. The Final Truth stands full in the field of our vision. "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith Jehovah, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." That spiritual Person who is self-existent, absolute, and infinite, is the Ultimate Ground, the Final Cause of the Universe.

The problem of the Universe is solved. We stand within the portico of the sublime temple of truth. Mortal has lifted, at last, the veil of Isis, and looked upon the eternal mysteries.

It is manifest now, how irrelevant and irreverent those expressions must be, in which the terms infinite and absolute are employed as signifying abstractions or amounts. They can have no meaning with reference to the Universe. But what their true significance is, stands out with unmistakable clearness and precision.

1. Absoluteness is that distinctive spiritual quality of the necessary Being which establishes Him as unqualified except by Himself, and as complete.

2. Absoluteness and Unconditionedness are,—the one the positive, and the other the negative term expressive of the same idea.

3. Infinity is that distinctive spiritual quality of the necessary Being which gives to Him universality.

Absoluteness and Infinity are, then, spiritual qualities of the self-existent Person, which, distinguishing Him from all other persons, constitute Him unique and supreme.

It is a law of Logic, which even the child must acknowledge, that whenever, by a process of thought, a result has been attained and set forth, he who propounds the result is directly responsible for all that is logically involved in it. The authority of that law is here both acknowledged and invoked. The most rigid and exhaustive logical development of the premises heretofore obtained, which the human mind is capable of, is challenged, in the confidence that there can be found therein no jot of discrepancy, no tittle of contradiction. As germain, and important to the matter in hand, some steps in this development will be noted.

In solving the problem placed before us, viz: To account for the being and continuance of the Universe, we have found that the Universe and its Cause are two distinct and yet intimately and necessarily connected beings, the one dependent upon the other, and that other utterly independent; and so that the one is limited and finite, and the other absolute and infinite; that the one is partly thing and partly person, and that to both thing and person limitation and finiteness belong; while the other is wholly person, and consequently the pure, absolute, and infinite Person. We have further found that absoluteness and infinity are spiritual qualities of that one Person, which are incommunicable, and differentiate Him from all other possible beings; and which establish Him as the uncaused, self-active ground for all possible beings besides. It is then a Person with all the limitations and conditions of personality,—a Person at once limited and unlimited, conditioned and unconditioned, related and unrelated, whose limitations, conditions, and relations are entirely consistent with his absoluteness and infinity, who is the final Cause, the Ultimate Ground of the Universe.

The finite person is self-conscious, and in a measure self-comprehending; but he only partially perceives the workings of his own being. A fortiori, must the infinite Person be self-conscious, and exhaustively self-comprehending. The finite person is an intellect, sensibility, and will; but these are circumscribed by innumerable limitations. So must the infinite Person be intellect, sensibility, and will; but His intellect must be Universal Genius; His sensibility Pure Delight, and His will, as choice, Universal Benevolence, and as act, Omnipotence.

1. As intellect, the infinite Person is Universal Genius.

Then, he "must possess the primary copies or patterns of what it is possible may be, in his own subjective apprehension;" or, in other words, "The pure ideals of all possible entities, lie as pure reason conceptions in the light of the divine intelligence, and in these must be found the rules after which the creative agency must go forth." These a priori "pure ideals" are conditional of his knowledge. They are the sum and limit of all possible knowledge. He must know them as they are. He cannot intuit, or think otherwise than in accordance with them. However many there may be of these ideals, the number is fixed and definite, and must be so; and so the infinite Person must see it. In fine, in the fact of exhaustive self-comprehension is involved the fact, that the number of his qualities, attributes, faculties, forms of activity, and acts, are, and must be limited, definite, and so known to him; and yet he is infinite and absolute, and thoroughly knows himself to be so.

2. As sensibility, the infinite Person is Pure Delight.

Then he exists in a state of unalloyed and complete bliss, produced by the ceaseless consciousness of his perfect worth and worthiness, and his entire complacency therein. Yet he is pleased with the good conduct, and displeased with the evil conduct, of the moral beings he has made. And if two are good, and one better than another, he loves the one more than the other. Yet all this in no way modifies, or limits, or lessens his own absolute self-satisfaction and happiness.

3. As will, the infinite Person is, in choice, Universal Benevolence; in act, Omnipotence.

a. In choice, the whole personality,—both the spontaneous and self activity, are entirely and concordantly active in the one direction. Some of the objects towards which this state manifests itself may be very small. The fact that each receives the attention appropriate to his place in the system of beings in no way modifies the Great Heart, which spontaneously prompts to all good acts. But

b. In act, the infinite Person, though omnipotent, is, always must be, limited. His ability to act is limited and determined by the "pure ideals," in which "must be found the rules after which the creative agency must go forth." In act he is also limited by his choice. The fact that he is Universal Benevolence estops him from performing any act which is not in exact accordance therewith. He cannot construct a rational being, to whom two and two will appear five; and if he should attempt to, he would cease to be perfect Goodness. Again, the infinite Person performs an act—of Creation. The act is, must be, limited and definite; and so must the product—the Universe be. He cannot create an unlimited Universe, nor perform an infinite act. The very words unlimited Universe, and as well the notions they express, are contradictory, and annihilate each other. Further, an infinite act, even if possible, would not, could not create, or have any relation to the construction of a Universe. An infinite act must be the realization of an infinite ideal. The infinite Person has a thorough comprehension of himself; and consequently a complete idea of himself. That idea, being the idea of the infinite Person, is infinite; and it is the only possible infinite idea. He finds this idea realized in himself. But, should it be in his power to realize it again, that exertion of power would be an infinite act, and its product another infinite Person. No other infinite act, and no other result, are rationally supposable.

The Universe, then, however large it be, is, must be, limited and definite. Its magnitude may be inconceivable to us; but in the mind of its Creator every atom is numbered. No spirit may ever have skirted its boundary; but that boundary is as clear and distinct to his eye as the outline of the Alps against a clear sky is to the traveller's. The questions Where? How far? How long? How much? and the like, are pertinent only in the Universe; and their answers are always limited and definite.

The line of thought we have been pursuing is deemed by a large class of thinkers not only paradoxical, but utterly contradictory and self-destructive. We speak of a Person, a term which necessarily involves limitation and condition, as infinite and absolute. We speak of this infinity and absoluteness as spiritual qualities, which are conditional and limiting to him. We speak of him as conditioned by an inability to be finite. In fine, to those good people, the Limitists, our sense seems utter nonsense. It is required, therefore, for the completion of this portion of our task, to present a rational ground upon which these apparent contradictions shall become manifestly consistent.

In those sentences where the infinite Person is spoken of as limited and unlimited, &c., it is evident that there is a play upon words, and that they apply to different qualities in the personality. It is not said, of course, that the number of his faculties is limited and unlimited; or that his self-complacency is boundless and constrained; or that his act is conditioned and unconditioned. Nor are these seeming paradoxes stated to puzzle and disturb. They are written to express a great, fundamental, and all-important truth, which seems never once to have shadowed the minds of the Limitists,—a truth which, when once seen, dispels forever all the ghostly battalions of difficulties which they have raised. The truth is this.

That Being whose limitations, conditions, and relations are wholly subjective, i. e. find their whole base and spring in his self; and who is therefore entirely free from on all possible limitations, conditions, and relations, from without himself; and who possesses, therefore, all possible fulness of all possible excellences, and finds the perennial acme of happiness in self-contemplation, and the consciousness of his perfect worth; and being such is ground for all other possible being; is, in the true philosophical sense, unrelated, unconditioned, unlimited. Or, in other words, the conditions imposed by Universal Genius upon the absolute and infinite Person are different in kind from the conditions imposed upon finite persons and physical things. The former in no way diminish aught from the fulness of their possessor's endowments; the latter not only do so diminish, but render it impossible for their possessor to supply the deficiency.

The following dictum will, then, concisely and exactly express the truth we have attained.

Those only are conditions, in the philosophical sense, which diminish the fulness of the possessor's endowments.

An admirable illustration of this truth can be drawn from some reflections of Laurens P. Hickok, D. D., which we quote. "What we need is not merely a rule by which to direct the process in the attainment of any artistic end, but we must find the legislator who may determine the end itself"...

Whence is the ultimate behest that is to determine the archetype, and control the pure spontaneity in its action.

"Must the artist work merely because there is an inner want to gratify, with no higher end than the gratification of the highest constitutional craving? Can we find nothing beyond a want, which shall from its own behest demand that this, and not its opposite, shall be? Grant that the round worlds and all their furniture are good—but why good? Certainly as means to an end. Grant that this end, the happiness of sentient beings, is good—but why good? Because it supplies the want of the Supreme Architect. And is this the supreme good? Surely if it is, we are altogether within nature's conditions, call our ultimate attainment by what name we may. We have no origin for our legislation, only as the highest architect finds such wants within himself, and the archetypal rule for gratifying his wants in the most effectual manner; and precisely as the ox goes to his fodder in the shortest way, so he goes to his work in making and peopling worlds in the most direct manner. Here is no will; no personality; no pure autonomy. The artist finds himself so constituted that he must work in this manner, or the craving of his own nature becomes intolerable to himself, and the gratifying of this craving is the highest good."

We attain hereby a mark by which to distinguish the diminishing from the undiminishing condition. A sense of want, a craving, is the necessary result of a diminishing condition. Hence the presence of any craving is the distinguishing mark of the finite; and that plenitude of endowments which excludes all possible craving or lack, is the distinguishing mark of the infinite and absolute Person. In this plenitude his infinity and absoluteness consist; and it is, therefore, conditional of them. Upon this plenitude, as conditional of this Person's perfection, Dr. Hickok speaks further, as follows:—

"We must find that which shall itself be the reason and law for benevolence, and for the sake of which the artist shall be put to his beneficent agency above all considerations that he finds his nature craving it. It must be that for whose sake, happiness, even that which, as kind and benevolent, craves on all sides the boon to bless others, itself should be. Not sensient nor artistic autonomy, but a pure ethic autonomy, which knows that within itself there is an excellency which obliges for the sake of itself. This is never to be found, nor anything very analogous to it, in sensient nature and a dictate from some generalized experience. It lies within the rational spirit, and is law in the heart, as an inward imperative in its own right, and must there be found.... This inward witnessing capacitates for self-legislating and self-rewarding. It is inward consciousness of a worth imperative above want; an end in itself, and not means to another end; a user of things, but not itself to be used by anything; and, on account of its intrinsic excellency, an authoritative determiner for its own behoof of the entire artistic agency with all its products, and thus a conscience excusing or accusing.

"This inward witnessing of the absolute to his own worthiness, gives the ultimate estimate to nature, which needs and can attain to nothing higher, than that it should satisfy this worthiness as end; and thereby in all his works, he fixes, in his own light, upon the subjective archetype, and attains to the objective result of that which is befitting his own dignity. It is, therefore, in no craving want which must be gratified, but from the interest of an inner behest, which should be executed for his own worthiness' sake, that 'God has created all things, and for his pleasure they are and were created.'"

In the light of the foregoing discussion and illustrations, the division of conditions into two classes—the one class, conditions proper, comprising those which diminish the endowments of the being upon whom they lie, and are ground for a craving or lack; and the other class, comprising those conditions which do not diminish the endowments of the being upon whom they lie, and which are, therefore, ground for perfect plenitude of endowments, and of self-satisfaction on account thereof—is seen to be thoroughly philosophical. And let it be here noted, that the very construction, or, if the term suit better, perception of this distinction, is a decisive evidence of the fact, and a direct product of the operation of the Pure Reason. If our intellect comprised only what the Limitists acknowledge it to be, a Sense and an Understanding, not only could no other but diminishing conditions be thought of, but by no possibility could a hint that there were any others flit through the mind. Such a mind, being wholly in nature, and conditioned by nature, cannot climb up out of nature, and perceive aught there. But those conditions which lie upon the infinite Person are supernatural and spiritual; and could not be even vaguely guessed at, much more examined critically and classified, but by a being possessed of a faculty the same in kind with the intellect in which such spiritual conditions inhere.

The actual processes which go on in the mind are as follows. The Sense, possessing a purely mechanical structure, a structure not differing in kind from that of the vegetable,—both being alike entirely conditioned by the law of cause and effect,—perceives phenomena. The relation of the object to the sensorium, or of the image to the sensory, and the forms under which the Sense shall receive the impression, are fixed. Because the Sense acts compulsorily, in fixed mechanical forms, it is, by this very construction, incapable, not only of receiving impressions and examining phenomena outside of those forms, but it can never be startled with the guess that there is anything else than what is received therein. For instance: A man born blind, though he can have no possible notion of what light is, knows that light is, from the testimony of those who can see. But if a race of men born blind should be found, who had never had any communication with men who could see, it is notorious that they could have no possible notion even that light was. A suspicion of its existence could never cross their minds. This position is strengthened and established beyond controversy, by the failure of the mind in its efforts to construct an entirely new sense. Every attempt only intensifies our appreciation of the futility of the effort. From fragments of the five senses we might, perhaps, construct a patchwork sixth; but the mind makes no presentation to itself of a new sense. The reason is, that, to do so, the Sense, as mental faculty, must transcend the very conditions of its existence. It is precisely with the Understanding as with the lower faculty. It cannot transcend its limits. It can add no item to the sum of human knowledge, except as it deduces it from a presentation by the Sense. Hence its conditions correspond to those in its associate faculty.

It is manifest, then, that a being with only these faculties may construct a system, but can never develop a science. It can arrange, classify, by such standards as its fancy may select, the phenomena in nature; but this must be in accordance with some sensuous form. No law can be seen, by which it ought to be so, and not otherwise. Such classification must always be determined by the number of stamens in the flower, for instance; and that standard, though arbitrary, will be as good as any other, unless there comes a higher faculty which, overlooking all nature, perceives the a priori law working in nature, which gives the ultimate ground for an exhaustive development of a science which in its idea cannot be improved. It is manifest, further, that those conditions, to which we have applied the epithet proper, lie upon the two faculties we have been considering. In this we agree with the Limitists.

It now behooves to present the fact that the faculty whose existence was proved in the earlier part of our work, is competent to overlook, and so comprehend nature, and all the conditions of nature, and thereby assign to said conditions their true and inferior place, while it soars out of nature, and intuits those a priori laws which, though the conditions of, are wholly unconditioned by nature; but which are both the conditions of and conditioned by the supernatural; and this in an entirely different sense from the other. This is the province of the Pure Reason. Standing on some lofty peak, above all clouds of sense, under the full blaze of eternal truth, the soul sees all nature spread like a vast map before her searching eye, sharply observes, and appreciates all the conditions of nature; and then, while holding it full in the field of her vision, with equal fulness perceives that other land, the spiritual plains of the supernatural, sees them too in all their conditionings; and sees, with a clearness of vision never approximated by the earthly eye, the fact that these supernatural conditions are no deprivation which awaken a want, but that they inhere and cohere, as final ground for absolute plenitude of endowments and fulness of bliss, in the Self-existent Person.

It will be objected to the position now attained, that it involves the doctrine that the Pure Reason in the finite spiritual person is on a par with the Universal Genius in the infinite spiritual Person. The objection is fallacious, because based upon the assumption that likeness in mode of action involves entire similarity. The mode of action in the finite Pure Reason is precisely similar to that of the Universal Genius; the objects perceived by both are the same, they are seen in the same light, and so are in accord; but the range of the finite is one, and the range of the infinite is another; and so diverse also are the circumstances attending the act of seeing. The range of the finite Reason is, always must be, partial: the range of the infinite Reason is, always must be, exhaustive (not infinite). In circumstances, the finite Reason is created dependent for existence, must begin in a germ in which it is inactive, and must be developed by association with nature, and under forms of nature; and can never, by any possibility of growth, attain to that perfectness in which it shall be satisfied, or to a point in development from which it can continue its advance as pure spirit. It always must be spirit in a body; even though that be a spiritual body. The infinite Reason is self-existent, and therefore independent; and is, and always must be, in the absolute possession of all possible knowledge, and so cannot grow. Hence, while the infinite and finite reasons see the same object in the same light, and therefore alike, the difference in range, and the difference in circumstance, must forever constitute them dissimilar. The exact likeness of sight just noticed is the necessary a priori ground upon which a moral government is possible.

In thus declaring the basis upon which the above distinction between the two classes of conditions rests, we have been led to distinguish more clearly between the faculties of the mind, and especially to observe how the Pure Reason enables us thereby to solve the problems she has raised. In this radical distinction lies the rational ground for the explication of all the problems which the Limitists raise. It also appears that the terms must, possible, and the like, being used to express no idea of restraint, as coming from without upon the infinite Person, or of lack or craving, as subsisting within him, are properly employed in expressing the fact that his Self, as a priori ground for his activity, is, though the only, yet a real, positive, and irremovable limit, condition, and law of his action. Of two possible ends he may freely choose either. Of all possible modes of action he may choose one; but the constituting laws of the Self he cannot, and the moral laws of his Self he will not, violate.

That point has now been reached at which this branch of the discussion in hand may be closed. The final base from which to conduct an examination of the questions respecting absoluteness and infinity has been attained. In the progress to this consummation it was found that a radical psychological error lay at the root of the philosophy taught by the Limitists. Their theory was seen to be partial, and essentially defective. Qualities which they do not recognise were found to belong to certain mental affirmations. Four classes of these affirmations or ideas were named and illustrated; and by them the fact of the Reason was established. Then its mode of activity and its functions were stated; and finally the great truth which solves the problem of the ages was, by this faculty, attained and stated. It became evident that the final cause of the Universe must be found without the Universe; and it was then seen that

That spiritual Person who is self-existent, absolute, and infinite, is the Ultimate Ground, the Final Cause, of the Universe.

Definitions of the terms absolute and infinite suitable to such a position were then given, with a few concluding reflections. From the result thus secured the way is prepared for an examination of the general principles and their special applications which the Limitists maintain, and this will occupy our future pages.

PART II.

AN EXAMINATION OF THE FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITION OF THE LIMITISTS, AND OF CERTAIN GENERAL COROLLARIES UNDER IT.

It has been attempted in the former pages to find a valid and final basis of truth, one which would satisfy the cravings of the human soul, and afford it a sure rest. In the fact that God made man in his own image, and that thus there is, to a certain extent, a community of faculties, a community of knowledge, a community of obligations, and a community of interests, have we found such a basis. We have hereby learned that a part of man's knowledge is necessary and final; in other words, that he can know the truth, and be sure that his knowledge is correct. If the proofs which have been offered of the fact of the Pure Reason, and the statements which have been made of the mode of its activity and of its functions, and, further, of the problem of the Universe, and the true method for solving it, shall have been satisfactory to the reader, he will now be ready to consider the analysis of Sir William Hamilton's fundamental proposition, which was promised on an early page. We there gave, it was thought, sufficiently full extracts for a fair presentation of his theory, and followed them with a candid epitome. In recurring to the subject now, and for the purpose named, we are constrained at the outset to make an acknowledgment.

It would be simple folly, a childish egotism, to pass by in silence the masterly article on this subject in the "North American Review" for October, 1864, and after it to pretend to offer anything new. Whatever the author might have wrought out in his own mental workshop,—and his work was far less able than what is there given,—that article has left nothing to be said. He has therefore been tempted to one of two courses: either to transfer it to these pages, or pass by the subject entirely. Either course may, perhaps, be better than the one finally chosen; which is, while pursuing the order of his own thought, to add a few short extracts therefrom. One possibility encourages him in this, which is, that some persons may see this volume, who have no access to the Review, and to whom, therefore, these pages will be valuable. To save needless repetition, this discussion will presuppose that the reader has turned back and perused the extracts and epitome above alluded to.

Upon the very threshold of Sir William Hamilton's statement, one is met by a logical faux pas which is truly amazing. Immediately after the assertion that "the mind can know only the limited and the conditionally limited," and in the very sentence in which he denies the possibility of a knowledge of the Infinite and Absolute, he proceeds to define those words in definite and known terms! The Infinite he defines as "the unconditionally unlimited," and the Absolute as "the unconditionally limited." Or, to save him, will one say that the defining terms are unknown? So much the worse, then! "The Infinite," an unknown term, may be represented by x; and the unconditionally unlimited, a compound unknown term, by ab. Now, who has the right to say, either in mathematics or metaphysics, in any philosophy, that x=ab? Yet such dicta are the basis of "The Philosophy of the Unconditioned." But, one of two suppositions is possible. Either the terms infinite and absolute are known terms and definable, or they are unknown terms and undefinable. Yet, Hamilton says, they are unknown and definable. Which does he mean? If he is held to the former, they are unknown; then all else that he has written about them are batches of meaningless words. If he is held to the latter, they are definable; then are they known, and his system is denied in the assertion of it. Since his words are so contradictory, he must be judged by his deeds; and in these he always assumes that we have a positive knowledge of the infinite and absolute, else he would not have argued the matter; for there can be no argument about nothing. Our analysis of his theory, then, must be conducted upon this hypothesis.

Turn back for a moment to the page upon which his theory is quoted, and read the last sentence. Is his utterance a "principle," or is it a judgment? Is it an axiom, or is it a guess. The logician asserts that we know only the conditioned, and yet bases his assertion upon "the principles," &c. What is a principle, and how is it known? If it is axiom, then he has denied his own philosophy in the very sentence in which he uttered it. And this, we have no hesitation in saying, is just what he did. He blindly assumed certain "fundamental laws of thought,"—to quote another of his phrases—to establish the impotence of the mind to know those laws as fundamental. Again, if his philosophy is valid, the words "must," "necessary," and the like are entirely out of place; for they are unconditional. In the conditioned there is, can be, no must, no necessity.

From these excursions about the principle let us now return to the principle itself. It may be stated concisely thus: There are two extremes,—"the Absolute" and the "Infinite." These include all being. They are contradictories, that is, one must be, to the exclusion of the other. But the mind can "conceive" of neither. What, then, is the logical conclusion? That the mind cannot conceive of anything. What is his conclusion? That the mind can conceive of something between the infinite and the absolute, which is neither the one nor the other, but a tertium quid—the conditioned. Where did this tertium quid come from, when he had already comprehended everything in the two extremes? If there is a mean, the conditioned, and the two extremes, then "excluded middle" has nothing to do with the matter at all.

To avoid the inevitable conclusion of his logic as just stated, Hamilton erected the subterfuge of mental imbecility. To deny any knowledge to man, was to expose himself to ridicule. He, therefore, and his followers after him, drew a line in the domain of knowledge, and assigned to the hither side of it all knowledge that can come through generalizations in the Understanding; and then asserted that the contradictions which appeared in the mind, when one examined those questions which lie on the further side of that line, resulted from the impotency of the mind to comprehend the questions themselves. This was, is, their psychology. How satisfactory it may be to Man, a hundred years, perhaps, will show. But strike out the last assertion, and write, Both are cognizable; and then let us proceed with our reasoning. The essayist in the North American presents the theory under four heads, as follows:—

"1. The Infinite and Absolute as defined, are contradictory and exclusive of each other; yet, one must be true.

"2. Neither of them can be conceived as possible.

"3. Each is inconceivable; and the inconceivability of each is referable to the same cause, namely, mental imbecility.

"4. As opposite extremes, they include everything conceivable between them."

The first and fourth points require our especial attention.

1. Let us particularly mark, then, that it is as defined, that the terms are "contradictory." The question, therefore, turns upon the definitions. Undoubtedly the definitions are erroneous; but in order to see wherein, the following general reflections may be made:—

The terms infinite and absolute, as used by philosophers, have two distinct applications: one to Space and Time, and one to God. Such definitions as are suitable to the latter application, and self-consistent, have already been given. Though reluctant to admit into a philosophical treatise a term bearing two distinct meanings, we shall waive for a little our scruples,—though choosing, for ourselves, to use the equivalent rather than the term.

Such definitions are needed, then, as that absolute Space and Time shall not be contradictory to infinite Space and Time. Let us first observe Hamilton's theory. According to it, Space, for instance, is either unconditional illimitation, or it is unconditional limitation; in other words, it is illimitable, or it is a limited whole. The first part of the assertion is true. That Space is illimitable, is unquestionably a self-evident truth. Any one who candidly considers the subject will see not only that the mind cannot assign limits to Space, but that the attempt is an absurdity just alike in kind with the attempt to think two and two five. The last part is a psychological blunder, has no pertinence to the question, and is not what Hamilton was groping for. He was searching for the truth, that there is no absolute unit in Space. A limited whole has nothing to do with the matter in hand—absoluteness—at all. The illimitability of Space, which has just been established as an axiom, precludes this. What, then, is the opposite pole of thought? We have just declared it. There is no absolute unit of Space; or, in other words, all division is in Space, but Space is indivisible. This, also, is an axiom, is self-evident. We attain, then, two poles of thought, and definitions of the two terms given, which are exhaustive and consistent.

"Space is illimitable.
Space is indivisible."

The one is the infinity of Space, the other is the absoluteness of Space. The fact, then, is, all limitation is in Space, and all division is in Space; but Space is neither limited or divided. One of the logician's extremes is seen, then, to have no foundation in fact; and that which is found to be true is also found to be consistent with, nay, essential to, what should have been the other.

Having hitherto expressed a decided protest against any attempt to find out God through the forms of Space and Time, a repetition will not be needed here. God is only to be sought for, found, and studied, by such methods as are suitable to the supreme spiritual Person. Hence all the attempts of the Limitists to reason from spatial and temporal difficulties over to those questions which belong to God, are simply absurd. The questions respecting Space and Time are to be discussed by themselves. And the questions respecting God are to be discussed by themselves. He who tries to reason from the one to the other is not less absurd than he who should try to reason from a farm to the multiplication table.

In Sir William Hamilton's behalf it should be stated, that there is just a modicum of truth underlying his theory,—just enough to give it a degree of plausibility. The Sense, as faculty for the perception of physical objects, or their images, and the Understanding as discursive faculty for passing over and forming judgments upon the materials gathered by the Sense, lie under the shadow of a law very like the one he stated. The Sense was made incapable of perceiving an ultimate atom or of comprehending the universe. From the fact that the Sense never has perceived these objects, the Understanding concludes that it never will. Only by the insight and oversight of that higher faculty, the Pure Reason, do we come to know that it never can. It was because those lower faculties are thus walled in by the conditions of Space and Time, and are unable to perceive or conceive anything out of those conditions, and because, in considering them, he failed to see the other mental powers, that Sir William Hamilton constructed his Philosophy of the Unconditioned.

2. Neither of them can be conceived as possible.

Literally, this is true. The word "conceive" applies strictly to the work of the Understanding; and that faculty can never have any notion of the Infinite or Absolute. But, assuming that "conceive" is a general term for cognize, the conclusion developed just above is inevitable. If all being is in one or the other, and neither can be known, nothing can be known.

3. They cannot be known, because of mental imbecility. If man can know nothing because of mental imbecility, why suppose that he has a mental faculty at all? Why not enounce, as the fundamental principle of one's theory, the assertion, All men are idiots? This would be logically consistent. The truth is, the logician was in a dilemma. He must confess that men know something. By a false psychology he had ruled the Reason out of the mind, and so had left himself no faculty by which to form any notion of absoluteness and infinity; and yet they would thrust themselves before him, and demand an explanation. Hence, he constructed a subterfuge. He would have been more consistent if he had said, There is no absolute and infinite. The conditioned is the whole of existence; and this the mind knows.

"4. As opposite extremes, they include everything conceivable between them."

What the essayist in the North American says upon this point is so apt, and so accords with our own previous reflections, that we will not forbear making an extract. "The last of the four theses will best be re-stated in Hamilton's own words; the italics are his. 'The conditioned is the mean between two extremes—two inconditionates, exclusive of each other, neither of which can be conceived as possible, but of which, on the principles of contradiction and excluded middle, one must be admitted as necessary.' This sentence excites unmixed wonder. To mention in the same breath the law of excluded middle, and two contradictions with a mean between them, requires a hardihood unparalleled in the history of philosophy, except by Hegel. If the two contradictory extremes are themselves incogitable, yet include a cogitable mean, why insist upon the necessity of accepting either extreme? This necessity of accepting one of two contradictories is wholly based upon the supposed impossibility of a mean; if the mean exists, that may be true, and both the contradictories false. But if a mean between the two contradictories be both impossible and absurd, (and we have hitherto so interpreted the law of excluded middle,) Hamilton's conditioned entirely vanishes."

Upon a system which, in whatever aspect one looks at it, is found to be but a bundle of contradictions and absurdities, further criticism would appear to be unnecessary.

Having, impliedly at least, accepted as true Sir William Hamilton's psychological error,—the rejection of the Reason as the intellectual faculty of the spiritual person,—and having, with him, used the terms limit, condition, and the like, in such significations as are pertinent to the Sense and Understanding only, the Limitists proceed to present in a paradoxical light many questions which arise concerning "the Infinite." They take the ground that, to our view, he can be neither person, nor intellect, nor consciousness; for each of these implies limitation; and yet that it is impossible for us to know aught of him, except as such. Then having, as they think, completely confused the mind, they draw hence new support for their conclusion, that we can attain to no satisfactory knowledge on the subject. The following extracts selected from many will show this.

"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. But distinction is necessarily a limitation; for, if one object is to be distinguished from another, it must possess some form of existence which the other has not, or it must not possess some form which the other has. But it is obvious that the Infinite cannot be distinguished, as such, from the Finite, by the absence of any quality which the Finite possesses; for such absence would be a limitation. Nor yet can it be distinguished by the presence of an attribute which the Finite has not; for as no finite part can be a constituent of an infinite whole, this differential characteristic must itself be infinite; and must at the same time have nothing in common with the finite....

"That a man can be conscious of the Infinite, is thus a supposition which, in the very terms in which it is expressed, annihilates itself. Consciousness is essentially a limitation; for it is the determination of the mind to one actual out of many possible modifications. But the Infinite, if it is conceived at all, must be conceived as potentially everything, and actually nothing; for if there is anything in general which it cannot become, it is thereby limited; and if there is anything in particular which it actually is, it is thereby excluded from being any other thing. But again, it must also be conceived as actually everything, and potentially nothing; for an unrealized potentiality is likewise a limitation. If the infinite can be that which it is not, it is by that very possibility marked out as incomplete, and capable of a higher perfection. If it is actually everything, it possesses no characteristic feature by which it can be distinguished from anything else, and discerned as an object of consciousness....

"Rationalism is thus only consistent with itself when it refuses to attribute consciousness to God. Consciousness, in the only form in which we can conceive it, implies limitation and change,—the perception of one object out of many, and a comparison of that object with others. To he always conscious of the same object, is, humanly speaking, not to be conscious at all; and, beyond its human manifestation, we can have no conception of what consciousness is."—Limits of Religious Thought, pp. 93-95.

"As the conditionally limited (which we may briefly call the conditioned) is thus the only possible object of knowledge and of positive thought—thought necessarily supposes conditions. To think is to condition; and conditional limitation is the fundamental law of the possibility of thought....

"Thought cannot transcend consciousness; consciousness is only possible under the antithesis of a subject and object of thought; known only in correlation, and mutually limiting each other; while, independently of this, all that we know either of subject or object, either of mind or matter, is only a knowledge in each of the particular, of the plural, of the different, of the modified, of the phenomenal. We admit that the consequence of this doctrine is—that philosophy, if viewed as more than a science of the conditioned, is impossible. Departing from the particular, we admit that we can never, in out highest generalizations, rise above the finite; that our knowledge, whether of mind or matter, can be nothing more than a knowledge of the relative manifestations of an existence, which in itself it is our highest wisdom to recognize as beyond the reach of philosophy."

"In all this, so far as human intelligence is concerned, we cordially agree; for a more complete admission could not be imagined, not only that a knowledge, and even a notion, of the absolute is impossible for man, but that we are unable to conceive the possibility of such a knowledge even in the Deity himself, without contradicting our human conceptions of the possibility of intelligence itself."—Sir William Hamilton's Essays, pp. 21, 22, 38.

"The various mental attributes which we ascribe to God—Benevolence, Holiness, Justice, Wisdom, for example—can be conceived by us only as existing in a benevolent and holy and just and wise Being, who is not identical with any one of his attributes, but the common subject of them all; in one word, a Person. But Personality, as we conceive it, is essentially a limitation and relation. Our own personality is presented to us as relative and limited; and it is from that presentation that all our representative notions of personality are derived. Personality is presented to us as a relation between the conscious self and the various modes of his consciousness. There is no personality in abstract thought without a thinker: there is no thinker unless he exercises some mode of thought. Personality is also a limitation; for the thought and the thinker are distinguished from and limit each other; and the various modes of thought are distinguished each from each by limitation likewise...."—Limits of Religious Thought, p. 102.

"Personality, with all its limitations, though far from exhibiting the absolute nature of God as He is, is yet truer, grander, more elevating, more religious, than those barren, vague, meaningless abstractions in which men babble about nothing under the name of the Infinite and Personal conscious existence, limited though it be, is yet the noblest of all existence of which man can dream.... It is by consciousness alone that we know that God exists, or that we are able to offer Him any service. It is only by conceiving Him as a Conscious Being, that we can stand in any religious relation to Him at all; that we can form such a representation of Him as is demanded by our spiritual wants, insufficient though it be to satisfy our intellectual curiosity."—Limits of Religious Thought, p. 104.

The conclusions of these writers upon this whole topic are as follows:—

"The mind is not represented as conceiving two propositions subversive of each other as equally possible; but only as unable to understand as possible two extremes; one of which, however, on the ground of their mutual repugnance, it is compelled to recognize as true.... And by a wonderful revelation we are thus, in the very consciousness of our inability to conceive aught above the relative and finite, inspired with a belief in the existence of something unconditioned beyond the sphere of all comprehensive reality."—Sir William Hamilton's Essays, p. 22.

"To sum up briefly this portion of my argument. The conception of the Absolute and Infinity, from whatever side we view it, appears encompassed with contradictions. There is a contradiction in supposing such an object to exist, whether alone or in conjunction with others; and there is a contradiction in supposing it not to exist. There is a contradiction in conceiving it as one; and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as many. There is a contradiction in conceiving it as personal; and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as impersonal. It cannot, without contradiction, be represented as active; nor, without equal contradiction, be represented as inactive. It cannot be conceived as the sum of all existence; nor yet can it be conceived as a part only of that sum."—Limits of Religious Thought, pp. 84, 85.

We have quoted thus largely, preferring that the Limitists should speak for themselves. Their doctrine, as taught, not simply in these passages, but throughout their writings, may be briefly summed up as follows.

The human mind, whenever it attempts to investigate the profoundest subjects which come before it, and which it is goaded to examine, finds itself in an inextricable maze of contradictions; and, after vainly struggling for a while to get out, becomes nonplussed, confused, confounded, dazed; and, falling down helpless and effortless in the maze, and with devout humility acknowledging its impotence, it finds that the "highest reason" is to pass beyond the sphere and out of the light of reason, into the sphere of a superrational and therefore dark, and therefore blind faith.

But it is to be stated, and here we strike to the centre of the errors of the Limitists, that a perception and confession of mental impotence is not the logical deduction from their premises. Lustrous as may be their names in logic,—and Sir William Hamilton is esteemed a sun in the logical firmament,—no one of them ever saw, or else dared to acknowledge, the logical sequence from their principles. They have climbed upon the dizzy heights of thought, and out on their verge; and there they stand, hesitating and shivering, like naked men on Alpine precipices, with no eagle wings to spread and soar away towards the Eternal Truth; and not daring to take the awful plunge before them. Behold the gulf from which they shrink. Mr. Mansel says:—

"It is our duty, then, to think of God as personal; and it is our duty to believe that He is infinite. It is true that we cannot reconcile these two representations with each other, as our conception of personality involves attributes apparently contradictory to the notion of infinity. But it does not follow that this contradiction exists anywhere but in our own minds: it does not follow that it implies any impossibility in the absolute nature of God. The apparent contradiction, in this case, as in those previously noticed, is the necessary consequence of an attempt on the part of the human thinker to transcend the boundaries of his own consciousness. It proves that there are limits to man's power of thought; and it proves no more."—Limits of Religious Thought, p. 106.

Or, to put it in sharp and accurate, plain and unmistakable English. "It is our duty to think of God as personal," when to think of Him as personal is to think a lie; "to believe that He is infinite," when so to believe is to believe the lie already thought; and when to believe a lie is to incur the penalty decreed by the Bible—God's book—upon all who believe lies. And this is the religious teaching of a professed Christian minister in one of the first Universities in the world. Not that Mr. Mansel meant to teach this. By no means. But it logically follows from his premises. In his philosophy the mind instinctively, necessarily, and with equal authority in each case, asserts

That there must be an infinite Being;

That that Being must be Self-conscious,

Must be unlimited; and that

Consciousness is a limitation.

These assertions are contradictory and self-destructive. What follows then? That the mind is impotent? No! It follows that the mind is a deceiver! We learn again the lesson we have learned before. It is not weakness, it is falsehood: it is not want of capacity, it is want of integrity that is proved by this contradiction. Man is worse than a hopeless, mental imbecile, he is a hopeless, mental cheat.

But is the result true? How can it be, when with all its might the mind revolts from it, as nature does from a vacuum? True that the human mind is an incorrigible falsifier? With the indignation of outraged honesty, man's soul rejects the insulting aspersion, and reasserts its own integrity and authority. Ages of controversy have failed to obliterate or cry down the spontaneous utterance of the soul, "I have within myself the ultimate standard of truth."

It now devolves to account for the aberrations of the Limitists. The ground of all their difficulties is simple and plain. While denying to the human mind the faculty of the Pure Reason, they have, by the (to them) undistinguished use of that faculty, raised questions which the Understanding by no possibility could raise, which the Reason alone is capable of presenting, and which that Reason alone can solve; and have attempted to solve them solely by the assistance, and in the forms of, the Sense and the Understanding. Their problems belong to a spiritual person; and they attempt to solve them by the inferior modes of an animal nature. Better, by far, could they see with their ears. All their processes are developed on the vicious assumption, that the highest form of knowledge possible to the human mind is a generalization in the Understanding, upon facts given in the Sense: a form of knowledge which is always one, whether the substance be distinguished in the form, be a peach, as diverse from an apple; or a star, as one among a million. The meagreness and utter insufficiency of this doctrine, to account for all the phenomena of the human mind, we have heretofore shown; and shall therefore need only now to distinguish certain special phases of their fundamental error.

As heretofore, there will be continual occasion to note how the doctrine of the Limitists, that the Understanding is man's highest faculty of knowledge, and the logical sequences therefrom respecting the laws of thought and consciousness vitiate their whole system. One of their most important errors is thus expressed:—"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." "Thought cannot transcend consciousness; consciousness is only possible under the antithesis of subject and object of thought known only in correlation, and mutually limiting each other; while, independently of this, all that we know either of subject or object, either of mind or matter, is only a knowledge in each of the particular, of the plural, of the different, of the modified, of the phenomenal." In other words, our highest possible form of knowledge is that by which we examine the peach, distinguish its qualities among themselves, and discriminate between them and the qualities of the apple. And Sir William Hamilton fairly and truly acknowledges that, as a consequence, science, except as a system of objects of sense, is impossible.

The fact is, as has been made already sufficiently apparent, that the diagnosis by the Limitists of the constitution of the mind is erroneous. Their dictum, that all knowledge must be attained through "relation, plurality, and difference," is not true. There is a kind of knowledge which we obtain by a direct and immediate sight; and that, too, under such conditions as are no limitation upon the object thought. For instance, the mind, by a direct intuition, affirms, "Malice is criminal." It also affirms that this is an eternal, immutable, universal law, conditional for all possibility of moral beings. This direct and immediate sight, and the consciousness attending it, are full of that one object, and so are occupied only with it; and it does not come under any forms of relation, plurality, and difference. So is it with all a priori laws. The mode of the pure reason is thus seen to be the direct opposite of that of the Understanding and the Sense.

Intimately connected with the foregoing is a question whose importance cannot be overstated. It is one which involves the very possibility of God's existence as a self-conscious person. To present it, we recur again to the extracts made just above from Sir William Hamilton. "Consciousness is only possible under the antithesis of a subject and object of thought known only in correlation, and mutually limiting each other." Subsequently, he makes the acknowledgment as logically following from this: "that we are unable to conceive the possibility of such knowledge," i. e. of the absolute, "even in the Deity himself." That is, God can be believed to be self-conscious only on the ground that the human intellect is a cheat. The theory which underlies this assertion of the logician—a theory not peculiar to the Limitists, but which has, perhaps, been hitherto universally maintained by philosophers—may be concisely stated thus. In every correlation of subject and object,—in every instance where they are to be contrasted,—the subject must be one, and the object must be another and different. Hamilton, in another place, utters it thus: "Look back for a moment into yourselves, and you will find, that what constitutes intelligence in our feeble consciousness, is, that there are there several terms, of which the one perceives the other, of which the other is perceived by the first; in this consists self-knowledge," &c. Mark the "several terms," and that the one can only see the other, never itself.

This position is both a logical and psychological error. It is a logical error because it assumes, without argument, that there is involved in the terms subject and object such a logical contradiction and contradistinction that the subject cannot be object to itself. This assumption is groundless. As a matter of fact, it is generally true that, so far as man is concerned, the subject is one, and the object another and different. But this by no means proves that it is always so; it only raises the presumption that such may be the case. And when one comes to examine the question in itself, there is absolutely no logical ground for the assumption. It is found to be a question upon which no decision from logical considerations can have any validity, because it is purely psychological, and can only be decided by evidence upon a matter of fact. Furthermore, it is a psychological error, because a careful examination shows that, in some instances, the opposite is the fact; that, in certain experiences, the subject and object are identical.

This fact that the subject and object are often identical in the searching eye of human reason, and always so under the eye of Universal Genius, is of too vast scope and too vital importance to be passed with a mere allusion. It seems amazing that a truth which, the instant it is stated, solves a thousand difficulties which philosophy has raised, should never yet have been affirmed by any of the great spiritual-eyed thinkers, and that it should have found utterance, only to be denied, by the pen of the Limitists. A word of personal reminiscence may be allowed here. The writer came to see this truth during a process of thought, having for its object the solution of the problem, How can the infinite Person be self-comprehending, and still infinite? While considering this, and without ever having received a hint from any source that the possibility of such a problem had dawned on a human mind before, there blazed upon him suddenly, like a heaven full of light, this, which appeared the incomparably profounder question: How can any soul, not God only, but any soul, be a self-examiner? Why don't the Limitists entertain and explain this? It was only years after that he met the negative statement in Herbert Spencer's book. The difficulty is, that the Limitists have represented to their minds the mode of the seeing of the Reason, by a sensuous image, as the eye; and because the eye cannot see itself, have concluded that the Reason cannot see itself. It is always dangerous to argue from an illustration; and, in this instance, it has been fatal. If man was only an animal nature, and so only a receiver of impressions, with a capacity to generalize from the impressions received, the doctrine of the Limitists would be true. But once establish that man is also a spiritual person, with a reason, which sees truth by immediate intuition, and their whole teaching becomes worthless. The Reason is not receptivity merely, or mainly; it is originator. In its own light it gives to itself a priori truth, and itself as seeing that truth; and so the subject and object are identical. This is one of the differentiating qualities of the spiritual person.

Our position may be more accurately stated and more amply illustrated and sustained as follows:

Sometimes, in the created spiritual person, and always in the self-existent, the absolute and infinite spiritual Person, the subject and object are identical.

1. Sometimes in the created spiritual person, the subject and object are identical. The question is a question of fact. In illustrating the fact, it will be proved. When a man looks at his hands, he sees they are instruments for his use. When he considers his physical sense, he still perceives it to be instrument for his use. In all his conclusions, judgments, he still finds, not himself, but his instrument. Even in the Pure Reason he finds only his faculty; though it be the highest possible to intellect. Yet still he searches, searches for the I am; which claims, and holds, and uses, the faculties and capacities. There is a phrase universally familiar to American Christians, a fruit of New England Theology, which leads us directly to the goal we seek. It is the phrase, "self-examination." In all thorough, religious self-examination the subject and object are identical. In the ordinary labors and experiences of life, man says, "I can do this or that;" and he therein considers only his aptitudes and capabilities. But in this last, this profoundest act, the assertion is not, "I can do this or that." It is, "I am this or that." The person stands unveiled before itself, in the awful sanctuary of God's presence. The decision to be made is not upon the use of one faculty or another. It is upon the end for which all labor shall be performed. The character of the person is under consideration, and is to be determined. The selfhood, with all its wondrous mysteries, is at once subject and object. The I am in man, alike in kind to that most impenetrable mystery, the eternal I AM of "the everlasting Father," is now stirred to consider its most solemn duty. How shall the finite I am accord itself to the pure purpose of the infinite I AM? It may be, possibly is, that some persons have never been conscious of this experience. To some, from a natural inaptitude, and to others, from a perverse disinclination, it may never come. Some have so little gift of introspection, that their inner experiences are never observed and analyzed. Their conduct may be beautiful, but they never know it. Their impressions ever come from without. Another class of persons shun such an experience as Balshazzar would have shunned, if he could, the handwriting on the wall. Their whole souls are absorbed in the pursuit of earthly things. They are intoxicated with sensuous gratification. The fore-thrown shadow of the coming thought of self-examination awakens within them a vague instinctive dread; and they shudder, turn away, and by every effort avoid it. Sometimes they succeed; and through the gates of death rush headlong into the spirit-land, only to be tortured forever there with the experience they so successfully eluded here. For the many thousands, who know by experience what a calm, candid, searching, self-examination is, now that their attention has been drawn to its full psychological import, no further word is necessary. They know that in that supreme insight there was seen and known, at one and the same instant, in a spontaneous and simultaneous action of the soul, the seer and the seen as one, as identical. And this experience is so wide-spread, that the wonder is that it has not heretofore been assigned its suitable place in philosophy.

2. Always in the self-existent, the absolute and infinite, spiritual Person, the subject and object are identical. This question, though one of fact, cannot be determined by us, by our experience; it must be shown to follow logically from certain a priori first principles. This may be done as follows. Eternity, independence, universality, are qualities of God. Being eternal, he is ever the same. Being independent, he excludes the possibility of another Being to whom he is necessarily related. Being universal, he possesses all possible endowment, and is ground for all possible existence; so that no being can exist but by his will. As Universal Genius, all possible objects of knowledge or intellectual effort are immanent before the eye of his Reason; and this is a permanent state. He is an object of knowledge, comprehending all others; and therefore he exhaustively knows himself. He distinguishes his Self as object, from no what else, because there is no else to distinguish his Self from; but having an exhaustive self-comprehension, he distinguishes within that Self all possible forms of being each from each.

He is absolute, and never learns or changes. There is nothing to learn and nothing to change to, except to a wicked state; and for this there can be to him no temptation. He is ever the same, and hence there can be no instant in time when he does not exhaustively know himself. Thus always in him are the subject and object identical.

These two great principles, viz: That the Pure Reason sees a priori truth immediately, and out of all relation, plurality and difference, and that in the Pure Reason, in self-examination, the subject and object are identical, by their simple statement explode, as a Pythagorean system, the mental astronomy of the Limitists. Reason is the sun, and the Sense and the Understanding, with their satellite faculties, the circumvolving planets.

The use of terms by the Limitists has been as vicious as their processes of thought, and has naturally sprung from their fundamental error. We will note one in the following sentence. "Consciousness, in the only form in which we can conceive it, implies limitation and change,—the perception of one object out of many, and a comparison of that object with others." Conceive is the vicious word. Strictly, it is usable only with regard to things in Nature, and can have no relevancy to such subjects as are now under consideration. It is a word which expresses only such operations as lie in the Sense and Understanding. The following definition explains this: "The concept refers to all the things whose common or similar attributes or traits it conceives (con-cepis), or grasps together into one class and one act of mind."—Bowen's Logic, p. 7. This is not the mode of the Reason's action at all. It does not run over a variety of objects and select out from them the points of similarity, and grasp these together into one act of mind. It sees one object in its unity as pure law, or first truth; and examines that in its own light. Hence, the proper word is, intuits. Seen from this standpoint, consciousness does not imply limitation and change. A first truth we always see as absolute,—we are conscious of this sight; and yet we know that neither consciousness nor sight is any limitation upon the truth. We would paraphrase the sentence thus: Consciousness, in the highest form in which we know it, implies and possesses permanence; and is the light in which pure truth is seen as pure object by itself, and forever the same.

It is curious to observe how the Understanding and the Pure Reason run along side by side in the same sentence; the inferior faculty encumbering and defeating the efforts of the other. Take the following for example.

"If the infinite can be that which it is not, it is by that very possibility marked out as incomplete, and capable of a higher perfection. If it is actually everything, it possesses no characteristic feature by which it can be distinguished from anything else, and discerned as an object of consciousness." The presence in language of the word infinite and its cognates is decisive evidence of the presence of a faculty capable of entertaining it as a subject for investigation. This faculty, the Reason having presented the subject for consideration, the Understanding seizes upon it and drags it down into her den, and says, "can be that which it is not." This she says, because she cannot act, except to conceive, and cannot conceive, except to distinguish this from something else; and so cannot perceive that the very utterance of the word "infinite" excludes the word "else." The Understanding conceives the finite as one and independent, and the infinite as one and independent. Then the Reason steps in, and says the infinite is all-comprehending. This conflicts with the Understanding's conception, and so the puzzle comes. In laboring for a solution, the Reason's affirmation is expressed hypothetically: "If it (the infinite) is actually everything;" and thereupon the Understanding puts in its blind, impertinent assertion, "it possesses no characteristic feature by which it can be distinguished from anything else." There is nothing else from which to distinguish it. The perception of the Reason is as follows. The infinite Person comprehends intellectually, and is ground for potentially and actually, all that is possible and real; and so there can be no else with which to compare him. Because, possessing all fulness, he is actually everything, by this characteristic feature of completeness he distinguishes himself from nothing, which is all there is, (if no-thing—void—can be said to be,) beside him; and from any part, which there is within him. Thus is he object to himself in his own consciousness.

This vicious working of the Understanding against the Reason, in the same sentences, can be more fully illustrated from the following extracts. "God, as necessarily determined to pass from absolute essence to relative manifestation, is determined to pass either from the better to the worse, or from the worse to the better. A third possibility that both states are equal, as contradictory in itself, and as contradicted by our author, it is not necessary to consider."—Sir William Hamilton's Essays, p. 42. "Again, how can the Relative be conceived as coming into being? If it is a distinct reality from the absolute, it must be conceived as passing from non-existence into existence. But to conceive an object as non-existent is again a self-contradiction; for that which is conceived exists, as an object of thought, in and by that conception. We may abstain from thinking of an object at all; but if we think of it, we cannot but think of it as existing. It is possible at one time not to think of an object at all, and at another to think of it as already in being; but to think of it in the act of becoming, in the progress from not being into being, is to think that which, in the very thought, annihilates itself. Here again the Pantheistic hypothesis seems forced upon us. We can think of creation only as a change in the condition of that which already exists; and thus the creature is conceivable only as a phenomenal mode of the being of the Creator."—Limits of Religious Thought, p. 81.

"God," a word which has no significance except to the Reason: "as necessarily determined,"—a phrase which belongs only to the Understanding. The opposite is the truth: "to pass from absolute essence." This can have no meaning except to the Pure Reason: "to relative manifestation." This belongs to the Understanding. It contradicts the other; and the process is absurd. The mind balks in the attempt to think it. In creation there is no such process as "passing from absolute essence to relative manifestation." The words imply that God, in passing from the state of absolute essence, ceased to be absolute essence, and became "relative manifestation." All this is absurd; and is in the Understanding and Sense. God never became. The Creator is still absolute essence, as before creation; and the logician's this or that are both false; and his third possibility is not a contradiction, but the truth. The fact of creation may be thus stated. The infinite Person, freely according his will to the behest of his worth, and yet equally free to not so accord his will, put forth from himself the creative energy; and this under such modes, that he neither lost nor gained by the act; but that, though the latter state was diverse from the first, still neither was better than the other, but both were equally good. Before creation, he possessed absolute plenitude of endowments. All possible ideals were present before his eye. All possible joy continued a changeless state in his sensibility. His will, as choice, was absolute benevolence; and, as act, was competent to all possible effort. To push the ideal out, and make it real, added nothing to, and subtracted nothing from, his fulness.

The fact must be learned that muscular action and the working of pure spirit are so diverse, that the inferior mode cannot be an illustration of the superior. A change in a pure spirit, which neither adds nor subtracts, leaves the good unchanged. Hence, when the infinite Person created, he passed neither from better to worse, nor from worse to better; but the two states, though diverse, were equally good.

We proceed now to the other extract. "Again, how can the relative," etc. "If the Relative is a distinct reality from the absolute," then each is self-existent, and independent. The sentence annihilates itself. "It must be conceived as passing from non-existence into existence." The image here is from the Sense, as usual, and vicious accordingly. It is, that the soul is to look into void, and see, out of that void, existence come, without there being any cause for that existence coming. This would be the phenomenon to the Sense. And the Sense is utterly unable to account for the phenomenon. The object in the Sense must appear as form; but in the Reason it is idea. Mr. Mansel's presentation may well be illustrated by a trick of jugglery. The performer stands before his audience, dressed in tights, and presents the palms of his hands to the spectators, apparently empty. He then closes his right hand, and then opening it again, appears holding a bouquet of delicious flowers, which he hands about to the astonished gazers. The bouquet seems to come from nothing, i. e. to have no cause. It appears "to pass from non-existence to existence." But common sense corrects the cheating seeming, and asserts, "There is an adequate cause for the coming of the bunch of flowers, though we cannot see it." Precisely similar is creation. Could there have been a Sense present at that instant, creation would have seemed to it a juggler's trick. Out of nothing something would have seemed to come. But under the correcting guide of the Pure Reason, an adequate cause is found. Before creation, the infinite Person did not manifest himself; and so was actually alone. At creation his power, which before was immanent, he now made emanent; and put it forth in the forms chosen from his Reason, and according to the requirement of his own worth. Nothing was added to God. That which was ideal he now made actual. The form as Idea was one, the power as Potentiality was another, and each was in him by itself. He put forth the power into the form, the Potentiality into the Idea, and the Universe was. Thus it was that "the Relative came into being." In the same manner it might be shown how, all along through the writings of the Limitists, the Understanding runs along by the Reason, and vitiates her efforts to solve her problems. We shall have occasion to do something of this farther on.

The topic now under discussion could not be esteemed finished without an examination of the celebrated dictum, "To think is to condition." Those who have held this to be universally true, have also received its logical sequence, that to the finite intellect God cannot appear self-comprehending. In our present light, the dictum is known to be, not a universal, but only a partial, truth. It is incumbent, therefore, to circumscribe its true sphere, and fix it there. We shall best enter upon this labor by answering the question, What is thinking?

First. In general, and loosely, any mental operation is called thinking. Second. Specifically, all acts of reflection are thinkings. Under this head we notice two points. a. That act of the Understanding in which an object presented by the Sense is analyzed, and its special and generic elements noted, and is thus classified, and its relations determined, is properly a thinking. Thus, in the object cat I distinguish specifically that it is domestic, and generically that it is carnivorous. b. That act of the finite spiritual person by which he compares the judgments of the Understanding with the a priori laws of the Pure Reason, and by this final standard decides their truth or error. Thus, the judgment of the young Indian warrior is, that he ought to hunt down and slay the man who killed his father in battle. The standard of Reason is, that Malice is criminal. This judgment is found to involve malice, and so is found to be wrong. Third, the intuitions of the reason. These, in the finite person, come after a process of reflection, and are partly consequent upon it; yet they take place in another faculty, which is developed by this process; but they are such, that by no process of reflection alone could they be. Thinking, in the Universal Genius, is the sight, at once and forever, of all possible object of mental effort. It is necessary and spontaneous, and so is an endowment, not an attainment; and is possessed without effort. We are prepared now to entertain the following statements:—

A. So far as it represents thinking as the active, i. e. causative ground, or agent of the condition, the dictum is not true. The fact of the thinking is not, cannot be, the ground of the condition. The condition of the object thought, whatever the form of thinking may be, must lie as far back at least as the ground of the thinker. Thus, God's self, as ground for his Genius, must also be ground for all conditions. Yet men think of an object in its conditions. This is because the same Being who constructed the objects in their conditions, constructed also man as thinker, correlated to those conditions, so that he should think upon things as they are. In this view, to think is not condition, but is mental activity in the conditions already imposed. Thus it is with the Understanding; and the process of thinking, as above designated, goes on in accordance with the law stated in a, of the second general definition. It follows, therefore,

B. That so far as the dictum expresses the fact, that within the sphere of conditions proper,—observing the distinction of conditions into two classes heretofore made,—the finite intellect must act under them, and see those objects upon which they lie, accordingly,—as, for instance, a geometrical figure must be seen in Time and Space,—so far it is true, and no farther. For instance: To see an eagle flying, is to see it under all the conditions imposed upon the bird as flying, and the observer as seeing. But when men intuit the a priori truth, Malice is criminal, they perceive that it lies under no conditions proper, but is absolute and universal. We perceive, then,

C. That for all mental operations which have as object pure laws and ideal forms, and that Being in whom all these inhere, this dictum is not true. The thinker may be conditioned in the proper sense of that term; yet he entertains objects of thought which are unconditioned; and they are not affected by it. Thus, it does not affect the universality of the principle in morals above noted that I perceive it to be such, and that necessarily.

Assuming, then, that by the dictum, To think is to condition, is meant, not that the thinker, by the act of thinking, constructs the conditions, but that he recognizes in himself, as thinking subject, and in the object thought, the several conditions (proper) thereof,—the following statements will define the province of this dictum.

1. The Universe as physical object, the observing Sense, and the discursive Understanding, lie wholly within it.

2. Created spiritual persons, as constituted beings, also lie wholly within it. But it extends no farther. On the other hand,

3. Created spiritual persons, in their capacities to intuit pure laws, and pure ideal forms; and those laws and forms themselves lie wholly without it.

4. So also does God the absolute Being in whom those laws and forms inhere. Or, in general terms,

When conditions (proper) already lie upon the object thought, since the thinker must needs see the object under its conditions, it is true that, To think is to condition. But so far as it is meant that thinking is such a kind of operation that it cannot proceed except the object be conditioned, it is not true; for there are processes of thought whose objects are unconditioned.

The question, "What are Space and Time?" with which Mr. Spencer opens his chapter on "Ultimate Scientific Ideas," introduces a subject common to all the Limitists, and which, therefore, should be considered in this part of our work. A remark made a few pages back, respecting an essay in the "North American Review" for October 1864, applies with equal force here in reference to another essay by the same writer, in the preceding July number of that periodical. At most, his view can only be unfolded. He has left nothing to be added. In discussing a subject so abstruse and difficult as this, it would seem, in the present stage of human thought at least, most satisfactory to set out from the Reason rather than the Sense, from the idea rather than the phenomenon; and so will we do.

In general, then, it may be said that Space and Time are a priori conditions of created being. The following extracts are in point. "Pure Space, therefore, as given in the primitive intuition, is pure form for any possible phenomenon. As unconjoined in the unity of any form, it is given in the primitive intuition, and is a cognition necessary and universal. Though now obtained from experience, and in chronological order subsequent to experience, yet is it no deduction from experience, nor at all given by experience; but it is wholly independent of all experience, prior to it, and without which it were impossible that any experience of outer object should be." "Pure Time, as given in the intuition, is immediately beheld to be conditional for all possible period, prior to any period being actually limited, and necessarily continuing, though all bounded period be taken away."—Rational Psychology, pp. 125, 128.

Again, a clearly defined distinction may be made between them as conditions. Space is the a priori condition of material being. Should a spiritual person, as the soul of a man, be stripped of all its material appurtenances, and left to exist as pure spirit, it could hold no communication with any other being but God; and no other being but he could hold any communication with it. It would exist out of all relation to Space. Not so, however, with Time. Time is the a priori condition of all created being, of the spiritual as well as material. In the case just alluded to, the isolated spiritual person would have a consciousness of succession and duration, although he would have no standard by which to measure that duration, he could think in processes, and only in processes, and thus would be necessarily related to Time. Dr. Hickok has expressed this thus: "Space in reference to time has no significancy. Time is the pure form for phenomena as given in the internal sense only, and in these there can be only succession. The inner phenomenon may endure in time, but can have neither length, breadth, nor thickness in space. A thought, or other mental phenomenon, may fill a period, but cannot have superficial or solid content; it may be before or after another, but not above or below it, nor with any outer or inner side."—Rational Psychology, p. 135.

Space and Time may also be distinguished thus: "Space has three dimensions," or, rather, there can be three dimensions in space,—length, breadth, and thickness. In other words, it is solid room. "Time has but one dimension," or, rather, but one dimension can enter into Time,—length. In Time there can only be procession. Space and Time may then be called, the one "statical," the other "dynamical," illimitation. Following the essayist already referred to, they may be defined as follows:

"Space is the infinite and indivisible Receptacle of Matter.

"Time is the infinite and indivisible Receptacle of Existence."

Both, then, are marked by receptivity, indivisibility, and illimitability. The one is receptivity, that material object may come into it; the other, that event may occur in it. There is for neither a final unit nor any limit. All objects are divisible in Space, and all periods in Time; and thus also are all limits comprehended, but they are without limit. Turning now from these more general aspects of the subject, a detailed examination may be conducted as follows.

The fundamental law given by the Reason is, as was seen above, that Space and Time are a priori conditions of created being. We can best consider this law in its application to the facts, by observing two general divisions, with two sub-divisions under each. Space and Time have, then, two general phases, one within, and one without, the mind. Each of these has two special phases. The former, one in the Sense, and one in the Understanding. The latter, one within, and one without, the Universe.

First general phase within the mind. First special phase, in the Sense. "As pure form in the primitive intuition, they are wholly limitless, and void of any conjunction in unity, having themselves no figure nor period, and having within themselves no figure nor period, but only pure diversity, in which any possible conjunction of definite figures and periods may, in some way, be effected." In other words, they are pure, a priori, formal laws, which are conditional to the being of any sense as the perceiver of a phenomenon; and yet this sense could present no figure or period, till some figure or period was produced into it by an external agency. As such necessary formal laws, Space and Time "have a necessity of being independently of all phenomena." Or, in other words, the fact that all phenomena must appear in them, lies beyond the province of power. This, however, is no more a limit to the Deity than it is a limit to him that he cannot hate his creatures and be good. In our experience the Sense gives two kinds of phenomena: the one the actual phenomena of actual objects, the other, ideal phenomena with ideal objects. The one is awakened by the presentation, in the physical sense, of a material object, as a house; the other, by the activity of the imaging faculty, engaged in constructing some form in the inner or mental sense, from forms actually observed. Upon both alike the formal law of Space and Time must lie.

Second special phase, in the Understanding. Although there is pure form, if there was no more than this, no notion of a system of things could be. Each object would have its own space, and each event its own time. But one object and event could not be seen in any relation to another object and event. In order that this shall be, there must be some ground by which all the spaces and times of phenomena shall be joined into a unity of Space and Time; so that all objects shall be seen in one Space, and all events in one Time. "A notional connective for the phenomena may determine these phenomena in their places and periods in the whole of all space and of all time, and so may give both the phenomena and their space and time in an objective experience." The operation of the Understanding is, then, the connection, by a notional, of all particular spaces and times; i. e. the space and time of each phenomenon in the Sense, into a comprehensive unity of Space and Time, in which all phenomena can be seen to occur; and thus a system can be. In a word, not only must each phenomenon be seen in its own space and time, but all phenomena must be seen in one Space and Time. This connection of the manifold into unity is the peculiar work of the Understanding. An examination of the facts as above set forth enables us to construct a general formula for the application to all minds of the fundamental law given by the Reason. That law, that all objects must be seen in Space, and all events in Time, involves the subordinate law:

That no mind can observe material objects or any events except under the conditions of Space and Time; or, to change the phraseology, Space and Time are a priori conditional to the being of any mind or faculty in a mind capable of observing a material object or any event. This will, perhaps, be deemed to be, in substance, Kant's theory. However that may be, this is true, but is only a part of the truth. The rest will appear just below. The reader will notice that no exception is made to the law here laid down, and will start at the thought that this law lies upon the Deity equally as upon created beings. No exception is made, because none can be truthfully made. The intellect is just as unqualified in its assertion on this point as in those noticed on an earlier page of this work. Equally with the laws of numbers does the law of Space and Time condition all intellect. The Deity can no more see a house out of all relation to Space and Time than he can see how to make two and two five.

Second general phase, without the mind. First special phase, within the Universe. All that we are now to examine is objective to us; and all the questions which can arise are questions of fact. Let us search for the fact carefully and hold it fearlessly. To recur to the general law. It was found at the outset that Reason gave the idea of Space and Time as pure conditions for matter and event. We are now to observe the pure become the actual condition; or, in other words, we are to see the condition realized. Since, then, we are to observe material objects and events in a material system, it is fitting to use the Sense and the Understanding; and our statements and conclusions will conform to those faculties.

We have a concept of the Universe as a vast system in the form of a sphere in which all things are included. This spherical system is complete, definite, limited, and so has boundaries. A portion of "immeasurable void"—Space—has been occupied. Where there was nothing, something has become. Now it is evident that the possibility of our having a concept of the Universe, or of a space and a time in the Universe, is based upon the presence of an actual, underlying, all-pervading substance, which fills and forms the boundaries of the Universe, and thus enables spaces and times to be. We have no concept except as in limits, and those limits are conceived to be substance. In other words, space is distance, and time is duration, in our concept. Take away the boundaries which mark the distance, and the procession of events which forms the duration, and in the concept pure negation is left. To illustrate. Suppose there be in our presence a cubic yard of vacuum. Is this vacuum an entity? Not at all. It can neither be perceived by the Sense nor conceived by the Understanding. Yet it is a space. Speaking carelessly, we should say that this cube was object to us. Why? Because it is enclosed by substantial boundaries. All, then, that is object, all that is entity, is substance. In our concept, therefore, a space is solid distance within the substance, and the totality of all distances in the Universe is conceived to be Space. Again; suppose there pass before our mind a procession of events. One event has a fixed recurrence. In our concept the procession of events is a time, and the recurring event marks a period in time. The events proceeding are all that there is in the concept; and apart from the procession a conception of time is impossible. The procession of all the events of the Universe, that is duration, is our concept of Time. Thus, within the Universe, space is solid distance and time is duration; and neither has any actuality except as the Universe is. Let us assume for a moment that our concept is the final truth, and observe the result. In that concept space is limited by matter, and matter is conceived of as unlimited. This result is natural and necessary, because matter, substance, "a space-filling force," is the underlying notional upon which as ground any concept is possible. If matter is truly illimitable, then materialistic pantheism, which is really atheism, logically follows. Again; in our concept time is duration, and duration is conceived of as unlimited. If so, the during event is unlimited. From this hypothesis idealistic pantheism logically follows. But bring our concept into the clear light, and under the searching eye of Reason, and all ground for those systems vanishes instantly. Instead of finding matter illimitable and the limit for a space, Space is seen to be illimitable and pure condition, that matter may establish a limit within it. And Time, instead of being duration, and so limited by the during event, is found to be illimitable and pure condition, that event may have duration in it. This brings us to the

Second special phase, without or independent of the Universe. We have been considering facts in an objective experience, and have used therefore the Sense and Understanding, as was proper. What we are now to consider is a subject of which all experience is impossible. It can therefore be examined only by that faculty which presents it, the Pure Reason. Remove now from our presence all material object in Space, and all during event in Time; in a word, remove the Universe, and what will be left? As the Universe had a beginning, and both it and all things in it are conditioned by Space and Time, so also let it have an end. Will its conditions cease in its ceasing? Could another Universe arise, upon which would be imposed no conditions of Space and Time? These questions are answered in the statement of them. Those conditions must remain. When we have abstracted from our concept all substance and duration, there is left only void. Hence, in our concept it would be proper to say that without the Universe is void, and before the Universe there was void. Also, that in void there is no thing, no where, and no when; or, void is the negation of actual substance, space and time. But pure Space and Time, as a priori conditions that material object and during event may be, have not ceased. There is still room, that an object may become. There is still opportunity, that an event may occur. By the Reason it is seen that these conditions have the same necessary being for material object and occurring event, as the conditions of mental activity have for mind; and they have their peculiar characteristics exactly according with what they do condition, just as the laws of thought have their peculiar characteristics, which exactly suit them to what they condition. If there be a spiritual person, the moral law must be given in the intuition as necessarily binding upon him; and this is an a priori condition of the being of such person. Precisely similar is the relation between Space and Time as a priori conditions, and object and event upon which they lie. The moral law has its characteristics, which fit it to condition spiritual person. Space and Time have their characteristics, which fit them to condition object and event. Space, then, as room, and Time as opportunity, and both as a priori conditions of a Universe, must have the same necessity of being that God has. They must be, as he must be. But observe, they are pure conditions, and no more. They are neither things nor persons. The idea of them in the Reason is simple and unanalyzable. They can be assigned their logical position, but further than this the mind cannot go.

The devout religious soul will start, perhaps, at some of the positions stated above. We have not wrought to pain such soul, but only for truth, and the clue of escape from all dilemmas. The only question to be raised is, are they true? If a more patient investigation than we have given to this subject shall show our positions false, then we shall only have failed as others before us have; but we shall love the truth which shall be found none the less. But if they shall be found true, then is it certain that God always knew them so and was always pleased with them, and no derogation to his dignity can come from the proclamation of them, however much they may contravene hitherto cherished opinions. Most blessed next after the Saviour's tender words of forgiveness are those pure words of the apostle John, "No lie is of the truth."

The conclusions to which we have arrived enable us to state how it is that primarily God was out of all relation to Space and Time. He was out of all relation to Space, because he is not material object, thereby having limits, form, and position in Space. He was out of all relation to Time, because he holds immediately, and at once, all possible objects of knowledge before the Eye of his mind. Hence he can learn nothing, and can experience no process of thought. Within his mind no event occurs, no substance endures. Yet, while this is true, it is equally true that, as the Creator, he is conditioned by Space and Time, just as he is conditioned by himself; and it may be found by future examination that they are essential to that Self. But, whatever conclusion may be arrived at respecting so difficult and abstract a subject, this much is certain: God, as the infinite and absolute spiritual Person, self-existent and supreme, is the great Fact; and Space and Time, whatever they are, will, can in no wise interfere with and compromise his perfectness and supremacy. It is a pleasure to be able to close this discussion with reflections profound and wise as those contained in the following extract from the essay heretofore alluded to.

"The reciprocal relations of Space, Time, and God, are veiled in impenetrable darkness. Many minds hesitate to attribute real infinity to Space and Time, lest it should conflict with the infinity of God. Such timidity has but a slender title to respect. If the Laws of Thought necessitate any conclusion whatever, they necessitate the conclusion that Space and Time are each infinite; and if we cannot reconcile this result with the infinity of God, there is no alternative but to accept of scepticism with as good a grace as possible. No man is worthy to join in the search for truth, who trembles at the sight of it when found. But a profound faith in the unity of all truth destroys scepticism by anticipation, and prophesies the solutions of reason. Space is infinite, Time is infinite, God is infinite; three infinites coexist. Limitation is possible only between existences of the same kind. There could not be two infinite Spaces, two infinite Times, or two infinite Gods; but while infinites of the same kind cannot coexist, infinites of unlike kinds may. When an hour limits a rod, infinite Time will limit infinite Space; when a year and an acre limit wisdom, holiness, and love, infinite Space and Time will limit the infinite God. But not before. Time exists ubiquitously, Space exists eternally, God exists ubiquitously and eternally. The nature of the relations between the three infinites, so long as Space and Time are ontologically incognizable, is utterly and absolutely incomprehensible; but to assume contradiction, exclusion, or mutual limitation to be among these relations, is as gratuitous as it is irreverent."

PART III.

AN EXAMINATION IN DETAIL OF CERTAIN IMPORTANT PASSAGES IN THE WRITINGS OF THE LIMITISTS.
ADDITIONAL REFLECTIONS UPON THE WRITINGS OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON.

It never formed any part of the plan of this work to give an extended examination of the logician's system of metaphysics, or even to notice it particularly. From the first, it was only proposed to attempt the refutation of that peculiar theory which he enounced in his celebrated essay, "The Philosophy of the Unconditioned," a monograph that has generally been received as a fair and sufficient presentation thereof; and which he supplemented, but never superseded. If the arguments adduced, and illustrations presented, in the first part, in behalf of the fact of the Pure Reason, are satisfactory, and the analysis and attempted refutation of the celebrated dictum based upon two extremes, an excluded middle and a mean, in the second part, are accepted as sufficient, as also the criticisms upon certain general corollaries, and the explanation of certain general questions, then, so far at least as Sir William Hamilton is concerned, but little, if any, further remark will be expected. A few subordinate passages in the essay above referred to may, however, it is believed, be touched with profit by the hand of criticism and explanation. To these, therefore, the reader's attention is now called.

In remarking upon Cousin's philosophy, Hamilton says: "Now, it is manifest that the whole doctrine of M. Cousin is involved in the proposition, that the Unconditioned, the Absolute, the Infinite, is immediately known in consciousness, and this by difference, plurality, and relation." It is hardly necessary to repeat here the criticism, that the terms infinite, absolute, &c. are entirely out of place when used to express abstractions. As before, we ask, infinite—what? The fact of abstraction is one of the greatest of limitations, and vitiates every such utterance of the Limitists. The truth may be thus stated:—The infinite Person, or the necessary principle as inhering in that Person, is immediately known in consciousness, and this, not by difference, plurality, and relation, but by a direct intuition of the Pure Reason. In this act the object seen—the idea—is held right in the Reason's eye; and so is seen by itself and in itself. Hence it is not known by difference, because there is no other object but the one before that eye, with which to compare it. Neither is it known by plurality, because it is seen by itself, and there is no other object contemplated, with which to join it. Nor is it known by relation, because it is seen to be what it is in itself, and as out of all relation. A little below, in the same paragraph, Hamilton again remarks upon Cousin, thus:—"The recognition of the absolute as a constitutive principle of intelligence, our author regards as at once the condition and the end of philosophy." The true idea, accurately stated, is as follows. The fact that, by a constituting law of intelligence, the Pure Reason immediately intuits absoluteness as the distinctive quality of a priori first principles, and of the infinite Person in whom they inhere, is the condition, and the application of that fact is the end of philosophy.

These two erroneous positions the logician follows with his celebrated "statement of the opinions which may be entertained regarding the Unconditioned, as an immediate object of knowledge and of thought." The four "opinions," to which he reduces all those held by philosophers, are too well known to need quotation here. They are noticed now, only to afford an opportunity for the presentation of a fifth, and, as it is believed, the true opinion, which is as follows.

The infinite Person is "inconceivable," but is cognizable as a fact, is known to be, and is, to a certain extent, known to be such and such; all this, by an immediate intuition of the Pure Reason, of which the spiritual person is definitely conscious; and that Person is so seen to be primarily unconditioned, i. e. out of all relation, difference, and plurality.

"Inconceivable." As we have repeatedly said, this word has no force except with regard to things in nature.

Is cognizable as a fact, &c. Nothing can be more certain than that an exhaustive knowledge of the Deity is impossible to any creature. But equally certain is it, that, except as we have some true, positive, reliable knowledge of him as he is, we cannot be moral beings under his moral government. Take, for instance, the moral law as the expression of God's nature. 1. Either "God is love," or he is not love—hate; or he is indifferent, i. e. love has no relation to him. If the last alternative is true, then the other two have no relevancy to the subject in hand. Upon such a supposition, it is unquestionably true that he is utterly inscrutable. Then are we in just the condition which the Limitists assert. But observe the results respecting ourselves. Our whole moral nature is the most bitter, tantalizing falsehood which it is possible for us to entertain as an object of knowledge. We feel that we ought to love the perfect Being. At times we go starving for love to him and beg that bread. He has no love to give. He never felt a pulsation of affection. He sits alone on his icy throne, in a realm of eternal snow; and, covered with the canopy, and shut in by the panoply, of inscrutable mystery, he mocks our cry. We beg for bread. He gives us a stone. Does such a picture instantly shock, yea, horrify, all our finer sensibilities? Does the soul cry out in agony, her rejection of such a conclusion? In that cry we hear the truth in God's voice; for he made the soul. Still less can the thought be entertained that he is hate. It is impossible, then, to think of God except as love. We know what love is. We know what God is. There is a somewhat common to the Deity and his spiritual creatures. This enables us to attain a final law, as follows.

In so far as God's creatures have faculties and capacities in common with him, in so far do they know him positively; but in all matters to which their peculiarities as creatures pertain, they only know him negatively; i. e. they know that he is the opposite of themselves.

That passage which was quoted in a former page, simply to prove that Sir William Hamilton denied the reality of the Reason as distinct from the Understanding, requires and will now receive a particular examination. He says: "In the Kantian philosophy, both faculties perform the same function; both seek the one in the many;—the Idea (Idee) is only the Concept (Begriff) sublimated into the inconceivable; Reason only the Understanding which has 'overleaped itself.'" In this sentence, and the remarks which follow it, the logician shows that he neither comprehends the assigned function and province of the Reason, nor possesses any accurate knowledge of the mental phenomena upon which he passes judgment. A diagnosis could not well be more thoroughly erroneous than his. For "both faculties" do not "perform the same function." Only the Understanding seeks "the one in the many." The Reason seeks the many in the one. The functions and modes of activity of the two faculties are exactly opposite. The Understanding runs about through the universe, and gathers up what facts it may, and concludes truth therefrom. The Reason sees the truth first, as necessary a priori law, and holding it up as standard, measures facts by it, or uses the Sense to find the facts in which it inheres. Besides, the author, in this assertion, is guilty of a most glaring petitio principii. For, the very question at issue is, whether "both faculties" do "perform the same function"; whether "both" do "seek the one in the many." In order not to leave the hither side of the question built upon a bare assertion, it will be proper to revert to a few of those proofs adduced heretofore. The Reason sees the truth first. Take now the assertion, Malice is criminal. Is this primarily learned by experience; or is it an intuitive conviction, which conditions experience. Or, in more general terms, does a child need to be taught what guilt is, before it can feel guilty, as it is taught its letters before it can read; or does the feeling of guilt arise within it spontaneously, upon a breach of known law. If the latter be the true experience, then it can only be accounted for upon the ground that an idea of right and wrong, as an a priori law, is organic in man; and, by our definition, the presentation of this law to the attention in consciousness is the act of the Reason. Upon such a theory the one principle was not sought, and is not found, in the many acts, but the many acts are compared with, and judged by, that one standard, which was seen first, and as necessarily true. Take another illustration. All religions, in accounting for the universe, have one common point of agreement, which is, that some being or beings, superior to it and men, produced it. And, except perhaps among the most degraded, the more subtle notion of a final cause, though often developed in a crude form, is associated with the other. These notions must be accounted for. How shall it be done? Are they the result of experience? Then, the first human beings had no such notions. But another and more palpable objection arises. Are they the result of individual experience? Then there would be as many religions as individuals. But, very ignorant people have the experience,—persons who never learned anything but the rudest forms of work, from the accumulated experience of others; nor by their own experience, to make the smallest improvement in a simple agricultural instrument. How, then, could they learn by experience one of the profoundest speculative ideas? As a last resort, it may be said they were taught it by philosophers. But this is negatived by the fact, that philosophers do not, to any considerable extent, teach the people, either immediately or mediately; but that generally those who have the least philosophy have the largest influence. And what is most in point, none of these hypotheses will account for the fact, that the gist of the idea, however crude its form, is everywhere the same. Be it a Fetish, or Brahm, or God, in the kernel final cause will be found. It would seem that any candid mind must acknowledge that no combined effort of men, were this possible, could secure such universal exactitude. But turn now and examine any individual in the same direction, as we did just above, respecting the question of right and wrong, and a plain answer will come directly. The notion of first cause, however crude and rudimentary its form, is organic. It arises, then, spontaneously, and the individual takes it—"the one,"—and in it finds a reason for the phenomena of nature—"the many,"—and is satisfied. And this is an experience not peculiar to the philosopher; but is shared equally by the illiterate,—those entirely unacquainted with scientific abstractions. These illustrations might be carried to an almost indefinite length, showing that commonly, in the every-day experiences of life, men are accustomed not only to observe phenomena and form conclusions, as "It is cloudy to-day, and may rain to-morrow," but also to measure phenomena by an original and fixed standard, as, "This man is malicious, and therefore wicked." Between the two modes of procedure, the following distinction may always be observed. Conclusions are always doubtful, only probable. Decisions are always certain. Conclusions give us what may be, decisions what must be. The former result from concepts and experience, the latter from intuitions and logical processes. Thus is made plain the fact that, to give it the most favorable aspect, Sir William Hamilton, in his eagerness to maintain his theory, has entirely mistaken one class of human experiences, and so was led to deny the actuality of the most profound and important faculty of the human mind. In view of the foregoing results, one need not hesitate to say that, whether he ever attempted it or not, Kant never "has clearly shown that the idea of the unconditioned can have no objective reality," for it is impossible to do this, the opposite being the truth. Its objective reality is God; it therefore "conveys" to us the most important "knowledge," and "involves" no "contradictions." Moreover, unconditionedness is a "simple," "positive," "notion," and not "a fasciculus of negations"; but is an attribute of God, who comprehends all positives. A little after, Hamilton says: "And while he [Kant] appropriated Reason as a specific faculty to take cognizance of these negations, hypostatized as positive, under the Platonic name of Ideas," &c. Here, again, the psychological question arises, Is the Reason such a faculty? Are its supposed objects negations? Are they hypostatized as positive? Evidently, if we establish an affirmative answer to the first question, a negative to the others follows directly, and the logician's system is a failure. Again, the discrimination of thought into positive and negative is simply absurd. All thought is positive. The phrase, negative thought, is only a convenient expression for the refusal of the mind to think. But "Ideas" are not thoughts at all, in the strict sense of that term. It refers to the operations of the mind upon objects which have been presented. Ideas are a part of such objects. All objects in the mind are positive. The phrase, negative object, is a contradiction. But, without any deduction, we see immediately that ideas are positives. The common consciousness of the human race affirms this.

The following remark upon Cousin requires some notice. "For those who, with M. Cousin, regard the notion of the unconditioned as a positive and real knowledge of existence in its all-comprehensive unity, and who consequently employ the terms Absolute, Infinite, Unconditioned, as only various expressions for the same identity, are imperatively bound to prove that their idea of the One corresponds, either with that Unconditioned we have distinguished as the Absolute, or with that Unconditioned we have distinguished as the Infinite, or that it includes both, or that it excludes both. This they have not done, and, we suspect, have never attempted to do." The italics are Hamilton's. The above statement is invalid, for the following reasons. The Absolute, therein named, has been shown to be irrelevant to the matter in hand, and an absurdity. It is self-evident that the term "limited whole," as applied to Space and Time, is a violation of the laws of thought. Since we seek the truth, that Absolute must be rejected. Again, the definitions of the terms absolute and infinite, which have been found consistent, and pertinent to Space and Time, have been further found irrelevant and meaningless, when applied to the Being, the One, who is the Creator. That Being, existing primarily out of all relation to Space and Time, must, if known at all, be studied, and known as he is. The terms infinite and absolute will, of necessity, then, when applied to him, have entirely different significations from what they will when applied to Space and Time. So, then, no decision of questions arising in this latter sphere will have other than a negative value in the former. The questions in that sphere must be decided on their own merits, as must those in this. What is really required, then, is, that the One, the Person, be shown to be both absolute and infinite, and that these, as qualities, consistently inhere in that unity. As this has already been done in the first Part of this treatise, nothing need be added here.

Some pages afterwards, in again remarking upon M. Cousin, Hamilton quotes from him as follows: "The condition of intelligence is difference; and an act of knowledge is only possible where there exists a plurality of terms." In a subsequent paragraph the essayist argues from this, thus: "But, on the other hand, it is asserted, that the condition of intelligence, as knowing, is plurality and difference; consequently, the condition of the absolute as existing, and under which it must be known, and the condition of intelligence, as capable of knowing, are incompatible. For, if we suppose the absolute cognizable, it must be identified either, first, with the subject knowing; or, second, with the object known; or, third, with the indifference of both." Rejecting the first two, Hamilton says: "The third hypothesis, on the other hand, is contradictory of the plurality of intelligence; for, if the subject of consciousness be known as one, a plurality of terms is not the necessary condition of intelligence. The alternative is therefore necessary: Either the absolute cannot be known or conceived at all, or our author is wrong in subjecting thought to the conditions of plurality and difference."

In these extracts may be detected an error which, so far as the author is informed, has been hitherto overlooked by philosophers. The logician presents an alternative which is unquestionably valid. Yet with almost, if not entire unanimity, writers have been accustomed to assign plurality, relation, difference, and—to adopt a valuable suggestion of Mr. Spencer—likeness, as conditions of all knowledge; and among them those who have claimed for man a positive knowledge of the absolute. The error by which they have been drawn into this contradiction is purely psychological; and arises, like the other errors which we have pointed out, from an attempt to carry over the laws of the animal nature, the Sense and Understanding, by which man learns of, and concludes about, things in nature, to the Pure Reason, by which he sees and knows, with an absolutely certain knowledge, principles and laws; and to subject this faculty to those conditions. Now, there can be no doubt but that if the logician's premiss is true, the conclusion is unavoidable. If "an act of knowledge is only possible where there exists a plurality of terms," then is it impossible that we should know God, or that he should know himself. The logic is impregnable. But the conclusion is revolting. What must be done, then? Erect some makeshift subterfuge of mental impotence? It will not meet the exigency of the case. It will not satisfy the demand of the soul. Nay, more, she casts it out utterly, as a most gross insult. Unquestionably, but one course is left; and that is so plain, that one cannot see how even a Limitist could have overlooked it. Correct the premiss. Study out the true psychology, and that will give us perfect consistency. Hold with a death-grip to the principle that every truth is in complete harmony with every other truth; and hold with no less tenacity to the principle that the human intellect is true. And what is the true premiss which through an irrefutable logic will give us a satisfactory, a true, an undoubted conclusion. This. A plurality of terms is not the necessary condition of intelligence; but objects which are pure, simple, unanalyzable, may be directly known by an intellect. Or, to be more explicit. Plurality, relation, difference, and likeness, are necessary conditions of intelligence through the Sense and Understanding; but they do not in the least degree lie upon the Reason, which sees its objects as pure, simple ideas which are self-evident, and, consequently, are not subject to those conditions. Whatever knowledge we may have of "mammals," we undoubtedly gain under the conditions of plurality, relation, difference, and likeness; for "mammals" are things in nature. But absoluteness is a pure, simple, unanalyzable idea in the Reason, and as such is seen and known by a direct insight as out of all plurality, relation, difference, and likeness: for this is a quality of the self-existent Person, and so belongs wholly to the sphere of the supernatural, and can be examined only by a spiritual person who is also supernatural.

Let us illustrate these two kinds of knowledge. 1. The knowledge given by the Sense and Understanding. This is of material objects. Take, for example, an apple. The Sense observes it as one of many apples, and that many characteristics belong to it as one apple. Among these, color, skin, pulp, juices, flavor, &c. may be mentioned. It observes, also, that it bears a relation to the stem and tree on which it grows, and, as well, that its several qualities have relations among themselves. One color belongs to the skin, another to the pulp. The skin, as cover, relates to the pulp as covered, and the like. The apple, moreover, is distinguished from other fruits by marks of difference and marks of likeness. It has a different skin, a different pulp, and a different flavor. Yet, it is like other fruits, in that it grows on a tree, and possesses those marks just named, which, though differing among themselves, according to the fruit in which they inhere, have a commonality of kind, as compared with other objects. This distinguishing, analyzing, and classifying of characteristics, and connecting them into a unity, as an apple, is the work of the Sense and Understanding.

2. The knowledge given by the Pure Reason. This is of a priori laws, of these laws combined in pure archetypal forms, and of God as the Supreme Being who comprehends all laws and forms. A fundamental difference in the two modes of activity immediately strikes one's attention. In the former case, the mode was by distinguishment and analysis. In the latter it is by comprehension and synthesis. Take the idea of moral obligation to illustrate this topic. No one but a Limitist will, it is believed, contend against the position of Dr Hopkins, "that this idea of obligation or oughtness is a simple idea." This being once acceded, carries with it the whole theory which the author seeks to maintain. How may "a simple idea" be known? It cannot be distinguished or analyzed. Being simple, it is sui generis. Hence, it cannot be known by plurality or relation, difference or likeness. If known at all, it must be known as it is in itself, by a spontaneous insight. Such, in fact, is the mode of the activity of the Pure Reason, and such are the objects of that activity. In maintaining, then, the doctrine of "intellectual intuition," M. Cousin was right, but wrong in subjecting all knowledge "to the conditions of plurality and difference."

Near the close of the essay under examination Sir Wm. Hamilton states certain problems, which he is "confident" Cousin cannot solve. There is nothing very difficult about them; and it is a wonder that he should have so presented them. Following the passage—which is here quoted—will be found what appear simple and easy solutions.

"But (to say nothing of remoter difficulties)—(1) how liberty can be conceived, supposing always a plurality of modes of activity, without a knowledge of that plurality;—(2) how a faculty can resolve to act by preference in a particular manner, and not determine itself by final causes;—(3) how intelligence can influence a blind power, without operating as an efficient cause;—(4) or how, in fine, morality can be founded on a liberty which at best only escapes necessity by taking refuge with chance;—these are problems which M. Cousin, in none of his works, has stated, and which we are confident he is unable to solve."

1. Liberty cannot be conceived. It must be intuited. There is "a plurality of modes," and there is "a knowledge of that plurality." 2. "A faculty" cannot resolve to act; cannot have a preference; and cannot determine itself at all. Only a spiritual person can resolve, can have a preference, can determine. 3. Intelligence cannot influence. Blind power cannot be influenced. Only a spiritual person can be influenced, and he by object through the intelligence as medium, and only he can be an efficient cause. 4. Morality cannot "be founded on a liberty, which only escapes necessity by taking refuge with chance;" and, what is more, such a liberty is impossible, and to speak of it as possible is absurd. What vitiates the processes of thought of the Limitists so largely, crops out very plainly here: viz., the employment both in thinking and expressions of faculties, capacities, and qualities, as if they possessed all the powers of persons. This habit is thoroughly erroneous, and destructive of truth. The truth desired to answer this whole passage, may be stated in exact terms thus: The infinite and absolute spiritual Person, the ultimate and indestructible, and indivisible and composite unit, possesses as a necessary quality of personality pure liberty; which is freedom from compulsion or restraint in the choice of one of two possible ends. This Person intuits a multitude of modes of activity. He possesses also perfect wisdom, which enables him, having chosen the right end, to determine with unerring accuracy which one of all the modes of activity is the best to secure the end. Involved in the choice of the end, is the determination to put in force the best means for securing that end. Hence this Person decides that the best mode shall be. He also possesses all-power. This is his endowment, not that of his intelligence. The intelligence is not person, but faculty in the person. So is it with the power. So then this Person, intuiting through his intelligence what is befitting his dignity, puts forth, in accordance therewith, his power; and is efficient cause. Such a being is neither under necessity nor chance. He is not under necessity, because there is no constraint which compels him to choose the right end, rather than the wrong one. He is not under chance, because he is certain which is the best mode of action to gain the end chosen. In this distinction between ends and modes of activity, which has been so clearly set forth by Rev. Mark Hopkins, D. D., and in the motions of spiritual persons in each sphere, lie the ground for answering all difficulties raised by the advocates of necessity or chance. With these remarks we close the discussion of Hamilton's philosophical system, and proceed to take up the teachings of his followers.

REVIEW OF "LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT."

This volume is one which will always awaken in the mind of the candid and reflective reader a feeling of profound respect. The writer is manifestly a deeply religious man. The book bears the marks of piety, and an earnest search after the truth respecting that august Being whom its author reverentially worships. However far wrong we may believe him to have gone in his speculative theory, his devout spirit must ever inspire esteem. Though it is ours to criticize and condemn the intellectual principles upon which his work is based, we cannot but desire to be like him, in rendering solemn homage to the Being he deems inscrutable.

In proceeding with our examination, all the defects which were formerly noticed as belonging to the system of the Limitists will here be found plainly observable. Following his teacher, Mr. Mansel holds the Understanding to be the highest faculty of the human intellect, and the consequent corollary that a judgment is its highest form of knowledge. The word "conceive" he therefore uses as expressive of the act of the mind in grasping together various marks into a concept, when that word and act of mind are utterly irrelevant to the object to which he applies them; and hence they can have no meaning as used. We shall see him speak of "starting from the divine, and reasoning down to the human"; or of "starting from the human, and reasoning up to the divine"; where, upon the hypothesis that the two are entirely diverse, no reasoning process, based upon either one, can reach the other. On the other hand, if any knowledge of God is possible to the created mind, it is only on the ground that there is a similarity, an exact likeness in certain respects, between the two; in other words, that the Creator plainly declared a simple fact, in literal language, when he said, "God made man in his own image." If man's mind is wholly unlike God's mind, he cannot know truth as God knows it. And if the human intellect is thus faulty, man cannot be the subject of a moral government, for every subject of a moral government is amenable to law. In order to be so amenable, he must know the law as it is. No phantasmagoria of law, no silhouette will do. It must be immediately seen, and known to be binding. Truth is one. He, then, who sees it as it is, and knows it to be binding, sees it as God sees it, and feels the same obligation that God feels. And such an one must man be if he is a moral agent. Whether he is such an agent or not, we will not argue here; since all governments and laws of society are founded upon the hypothesis that he is, it may well be assumed as granted.

Of the "three terms, familiar as household words," which Mr. Mansel, in his second lecture, proceeds to examine, it is to be said, that "First Cause," if properly mentioned at all, should have been put last; and that "Infinite" and "Absolute" are not pertinent to Cause, but to Person. So then when we consider "the Deity as He is," we consider him, not as Cause, for this is incidental, but as the infinite and absolute Person, for these three marks are essential. Further, these last-mentioned terms express ideas in the Reason; while the term Cause expresses "an a priori Element of connection, and thus a primitive understanding-conception." Hardly more satisfactory than his use of the term Cause is his definition of the terms absolute and infinite. He defines "the Absolute" to be "that which exists in and by itself, having no necessary relation to any other Being," when it is rather the exclusion of the possibility of any other Being. Again, he defines "the Infinite" to be "that which is free from all possible limitation; that than which a greater is inconceivable; and which, consequently, can receive no additional attribute or mode of existence which it had not from all eternity." "That which" means the thing which, for which is neuter. Mr. Mansel's infinite is, then, the Thing. This Thing "is free from all possible limitation." How can that be when the Being he thus defines is, must be, necessarily existent, and so is bound by one of the greatest of limitations, the inability to cease to be. But some light may be thrown upon his use of the term "limitation" by the subsequent portions of his definition. The Thing "which is free from all possible limitation" is "that than which a greater is inconceivable." Moreover, this greatest of all possible things possesses all possible "attributes," and is in every possible "mode of existence" "from all eternity." Respecting the phrase "than which a greater is inconceivable," two suppositions may be made. Either there may be a thing "greater" than, and diverse from, all other things; or there may be a thing greater than, and including all, other things. Probably the latter is Mr. Mansel's thought; but it is Materialistic Pantheism. This Being must be in every "mode of existence" "from all eternity." Personality is a "mode of existence"; therefore this Being must forever have been in that mode. But impersonality is also a mode of existence, therefore this Being must forever have been in that mode. Yet again these two modes are contradictory and mutually exclusive; then this Being must have been from all eternity in two contradictory and mutually exclusive modes of existence! Is further remark necessary to show that Mr. Mansel's definition is thoroughly vitiated by the understanding-conception that infinity is amount, and is, therefore, utterly worthless? Can there be a thing so great as to be without limits? Has greatness anything to do with infinity? Manifestly not. It becomes necessary, then, to recur to and amplify those definitions which we have already given to the terms he uses.

Absoluteness and infinity are qualities of the necessary Being.

Absoluteness is that quality of the necessary Being by which he is endowed with self-existence, self-dependence, and totality. Or in other words, having this quality, he is wholly independent of any other being; and also the possibility of the existence of any other independent Being is excluded; and so he is the Complete, the Final, upon whom all possible beings must depend.

Infinity is that quality of the necessary Being which gives him universality in the totality. It expresses the fact, that he possesses all possible endowments in perfection.

Possessing these qualities, that Being is free from any external restraint or limitation; but those restraints and limitations, which his very constituting elements themselves impose, are not removed by these qualities. For instance, the possession of Love, Mercy, Justice, Wisdom, Power, and the like, are essential to God's entirety; and the possession of them in perfect harmony is essential to his perfectness in the entirety. This fact of perfect harmony, exact balance, bars him from the undue exercise of any one of his attributes; or, concisely, his perfection restrains him from being imperfect. We revert, then, to the fundamental distinction, attained heretofore, between improper limitations, or those which are involved in perfection; and proper limitations, or those which are involved in deficiency and dependence; and applying it here, we see that those limitations, which we speak of as belonging to God, are not indicative of a lack, but rather are necessarily incidental to that possession of all possible perfection which constitutes him the Ultimate.

In this view infinity can have no relevancy to "number." It is not that God has one, or one million endowments. It asks no question about the number; and cares not for it. It is satisfied in the assertion that he possesses all that are possible, and in perfect harmony. It is, further, an idea, not a concept. It must be intuited, for it cannot be "conceived." No analogy of "line" or "surface" has any pertinence; because these are concepts, belonging wholly in the Understanding and Sense, where no idea can come. Yet it may be, is, the quality of an intelligence endowed with a limited number of attributes;—for there can be no number without limitation, since the phrase unlimited number is a contradiction of terms;—but this limitation involves no lack, because there are no "others," which can be "thereby related to it, as cognate or opposite modes of consciousness." Without doubt it is, in a certain sense, true, that "the metaphysical representation of the Deity, as absolute and infinite, must necessarily, as the profoundest metaphysicians have acknowledged, amount to nothing less than the sum of all reality." This sense is that all reality is by him, and for him, and from him; and is utterly dependent upon him. But Hegel's conclusion by no means follows, in which he says: "What kind of an Absolute Being is that which does not contain in itself all that is actual, even evil included." This is founded upon the suppressed premiss, that such a Being must do what he does, and his creatures must do what they do; and so evil must come. This much only can be admitted, and this may be admitted, without derogating aught from God's perfectness: viz., that he sees in the ideals of his Reason how his laws may be violated, and so, how sin may and will be in this moral system; but it is a perversion of words to say that this knowledge on the part of God is evil.

The knowing how a moral agent may break the perfect law, is involved in the knowing how such agent may keep that law. But the fact of the knowledge does not involve any whit of consent to the act of violation. On the other hand, it may, does, become the ground for the putting forth of every wise effort to prevent that act. Again; evil is produced by those persons whom God has made, who violate his moral laws. He being perfectly wise and perfectly good, for perfectly wise and good reasons sustains them in the ability to sin. There can be, in the nature of things, no persons at all, without this ability to sin. But God does not direct them to sin; neither when they do sin does any stain fall upon him for sustaining their existence during their sinning. That definition of the term absolute, upon which Hegel bases his assertion, is one fit only for the Sense and Understanding; as if God was the physical sum of all existence. It is Materialistic Pantheism. But by observing the definitions and distinctions, which have been heretofore laid down, it may be readily seen how an actual mode of existence, as that of finite person, may be denied to God, and no lack be indicated thereby. Hegel's blasphemy may, then, be answered as follows: God is the infinite and absolute spiritual Person. Personality is the form of his being. The form cannot be empty. Organized essence fills the form. Infinity and absoluteness are qualities of the Person as thus organized. The quality of absoluteness, for instance, as transfusing the essence, is the endowment of pure independence, and involves the exclusion of the possibility of any other independent Being, and the possession of the ability to create every possible dependent being. In so far, then, as Hegel's assertion means that no being can exist, and do evil, except he is created and sustained by the Deity, it is true. But in so far as it means—and this is undoubtedly what Hegel did mean—that God must be the efficient author of sin, that, forced by the iron rod of Fate, he must produce evil, the assertion is utterly false, and could only have been uttered by one who, having dwelt all his life in the gloomy cave of the Understanding, possessed not even a tolerably correct notion of the true nature of the subject he had in hand,—the character of God. From the above considerations it is apparent that all the requirements of the Reason are fulfilled when it is asserted that all things—the Universe—are dependent upon God; and he is utterly independent.

The paragraphs next succeeding, which have been quoted with entire approbation by Mr. Herbert Spencer, are thoroughly vitiated by their author's indefensible assumption, that cause is "indispensable" to our idea of the Deity. As was remarked above, the notion of cause is incidental. The Deity may or may not become a cause, as he shall decide. But he has no choice as to whether he shall be a person or not. Hence we may freely admit that "the cause, as such, exists only in relation to its effect: the cause is a cause of the effect; the effect is an effect of the cause." It is also true that "the conception"—idea—"of the Absolute implies a possible existence out of all relation." The position we have taken is in advance of this, for we say, involves an actual existence out of all relation. Introducing, then, not "the idea of succession in time," but the idea of the logical order, we rightly say, "the Absolute exists first by itself, and afterwards becomes a Cause." Nor are we here "checked by the third conception, that of the Infinite." "Causation is a possible mode of existence," and yet "that which exists without causing" is infinite. How is this? It is thus. Infinity is the universality of perfect endowment. Now, taking as the point of departure the first creative nisus or effort of the Deity, this is true. Before that act he was perfect in every possible endowment, and accorded his choice thereto. He was able to create, but did not, for a good and sufficient reason. In and after that act, he was still perfect as before. That act then involved no essential change in God. But he was in one mode of being before, and in another mode of being in and after that act. Yet he was equally perfect, and equally blessed, before as after. What then follows? This: that there was some good and sufficient reason why before that act he should be a potential creator, and in that act he should become an actual creator: and this reason preserves the perfection, i. e. the infinity of God, equally in both modes. When, then, Mr. Mansel says, "if Causation is a possible mode of existence, that which exists without causing is not infinite, that which becomes a cause has passed beyond its former limits," his utterance is prompted by that pantheistic understanding-conception of God, which thinks him the sum of all that was, and is, and ever shall be, or can be; and that in all this, he is actual. On the other hand, as we have seen, all that is required to fulfil the idea of infinity is, that the Being, whom it qualifies, possesses all fulness, has all the forms and springs of being in himself. It is optional with him whether he will create or not; and his remaining out of all relation, or his creating a Universe, and thus establishing relations to and for himself, in no way affect his essential nature, i. e. his infinity. He is a person, possessing all possible endowments, and in this does his infinity consist. In this view, "creation at any particular moment of time" is seen to be the only possible hypothesis by which to account for the Universe. Such a Person, the necessary Being, must have been in existence before the Universe; and his first act in producing that Universe would mark the first moment of time. No "alternative of Pantheism" is, can be, presented to the advocates of this theory. On the other hand, that scheme is seen to be both impossible and absurd.

One cannot disagree with Mr. Mansel, when in the next paragraph he says, that, "supposing the Absolute to become a cause, it will follow that it operates by means of free will and consciousness." But the difficulties which he then raises lie only in the Understanding, and may be explained thus. Always in God's consciousness the subject and object are identical. All that God is, is always present to his Eye. Hence all relations always appear subordinate to, and dependent upon him; and it is a misapprehension of the true idea to suppose, that any relation which falls in idea within him, and only becomes actual at his will, is any proper limitation. Both subject and object are thus absolute, being identical; and yet there is no contradiction.

The difficulty is further raised that there cannot be in the absolute Being any interrelations, as of attributes among themselves, or of attributes to the Being. This arises from an erroneous definition of the term absolute. The definition heretofore given in this treatise presents no such difficulty. The possession of these attributes and interrelations is essential to the exclusion by then possessor of another independent Being; and it is a perversion to so use a quality which is essential to a being, that it shall militate against the consistency of his being what he must be. If then "the almost unanimous voice of philosophy, in pronouncing that the absolute is both one and simple," uses the term "simple" in the same sense that it would have when applied to the idea of moral obligation, viz., that it is unanalyzable, then that voice is wrong, just as thoroughly as the voice of antiquity in favor of the Ptolemaic system of Astronomy was wrong; and is to be treated as that was. On such questions opinions have no weight. The search is after a knowledge which is sure, and which every man may have within himself. We land, then, in no "inextricable dilemma." The absolute Person we see to be conscious; and to possess complexity in unity, universality in totality. By an immediate intuition we know him as primarily out of all relation, plurality, difference, and likeness; and yet as having, of his own self, established the Universe, which is still entirely dependent upon him; from which he differs, and with which he is not identified.

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.

If the views now advanced are presentations of truth, a consistent rationalism must attribute "consciousness to God." We are always conscious of "limitation and change," because partiality and growth are organic with us. But we can perceive no peculiarity in consciousness, which should produce such an effect. On the contrary we see, that if a person has little knowledge, he will be conscious of so much and no more. And if a person has great capabilities, and corresponding information, he is conscious of just so much. Whence, it appears, that the "limitation and change" spring from the nature of the constitution, and not from the consciousness. If, then, there should be one Person who possessed the sum of all excellencies, there could arise no reason from consciousness why he should be conscious thereof.

Mr. Mansel names as the "second characteristic of Consciousness, that it is only possible in the form of a relation. There must be a Subject, or person conscious, and an Object or thing of which he is conscious." This utterance, taken in the sense which Mr. Mansel wishes to convey, involves the denial of consciousness to God. But upon the ground that the subject and object in the Deity are always identical the difficulty vanishes. But how can man be "conscious of the Absolute?" If by this is meant, have an exhaustive comprehension of the absolute Person, the experience is manifestly impossible. But man may have a certain knowledge, that such Person is without knowing in all respects what he is, just as a child may know that an apple is, without knowing what it is. Again Mr. Mansel uses the terms absolute and infinite to represent a simple unanalyzable Being. In this he is guilty of personifying an abstract term, and then reasoning with regard to the Being as he would with regard to the term. Absoluteness is a simple unanalyzable idea, but it is not God; it is only one quality of God. So with infinity. God is universal complexity; and to reason of him as unanalyzable simplicity is as absurd as to select the color of the apple's skin, and call that the apple, and then reason from it about the apple. So, then, though man cannot comprehend the absolute Person as such, he has a positive idea of absoluteness, and a positive knowledge that the Being is who is thus qualified. Upon the subsequent question respecting the partiality of our knowledge of the infinite and absolute Person, a remark made above may be repeated and amplified. We may have a true, clear, thorough knowledge that he exists without having an exhaustive knowledge of what he is. The former is necessary to us; the latter impossible. So, too, the knowledge by us, of any a priori law, will be exhaustive. Yet while we know that it must be such, and not otherwise, it neither follows that we know all other a priori laws, nor that we know all the exemplifications of this one. And since, as we have heretofore seen, neither absoluteness nor infinity relate to number, and God is not material substance that can be broken into "parts," but an organized Spirit, we see that we may consider the elements of his organization in their logical order; and, remembering that absoluteness and infinity as qualities pervade all, we may examine his nature and attributes without impiety.

Mr. Mansel says further: "But in truth it is obvious, on a moment's reflection, that neither the Absolute nor the Infinite can be represented in the form of a whole composed of parts." This is tantamount to saying, the spiritual cannot be represented under the form of the material—a truth so evident as hardly to need so formal a statement. But what the Divine means is, that that Being cannot be known as having qualities and attributes which may be distinguished in and from himself; which is an error. God is infinite. So is his Knowledge, his Wisdom, his Holiness, his Love, &c. Yet these are distinguished from each other, and from him. All this is consistent, because infinity is quality, and permeates them all; and not amount, which jumbles them all into a confused, indistinguishable mass.

In speaking of "human consciousness" as "necessarily subject to the law of Time," Mr. Mansel says, "Every object of whose existence we can be in any way conscious is necessarily apprehended by us as succeeding in time to some former object of consciousness, and as itself occupying a certain portion of time." In so far as there is here expressed the law of created beings, under which they must see objects, the remark is true. But when Mr. Mansel proceeds further, and concludes that, because we are under limitation in seeing the object, it is under the same limitation, so far as we apprehend it in being seen, he asserts what is a psychological error. To show this, take the mathematical axiom, "Things which are equal to the same things, are equal to one another." Except under the conditions of Time, we cannot see this, that is, we do, must, occupy a time in observing it. But do we see that the axiom is under any condition of Time? By no means. We see, directly, that it is, must be, true, and that in itself it has no relation to Time. It is thus absolutely true; and as one of the ideas of the infinite and absolute Person, it possesses these his qualities. We have, then, a faculty, the Reason, which, while it sees its objects in succession, and so under the law of Time, also sees that those objects, whether ideas, or that Being to whom all ideas belong, are, in themselves, out of all relation to Time. Thus is the created spiritual person endowed; thus is he like God; thus does he know "the Infinite." Hence, "the command, so often urged upon man by philosophers and theologians, 'In contemplating God, transcend time,'" means, "In all your reflections upon God, behold him in his true aspect, in the reason-idea, as out of all relation." It is true that "to know the infinite" exhaustively, "the human mind must itself be infinite." But this knowledge is not required of that mind. Only that knowledge is required which is possible, viz., that the Deity is, and what he is, in so far as we are in his image.

Again; personality is not "essentially a limitation and a relation," in the sense that it necessarily detracts aught from any being who possesses it. It rather adds,—is, indeed, a pure addition. We appear to ourselves as limited and related, not because of our personality, but because of our finiteness as quality in the personality.

Hence we not only see no reason why the complete and universal Spirit should not have personality, but we see that if he was destitute of it, he must possess a lower form of being,—since this is the highest possible form,—which would be an undoubted limitation; or, in other words, we see that he must be a Person. In what Mr. Mansel subsequently says upon this subject, he presents arguments for the personality of God so strong, that one is bewildered with the question, "How could he escape the conviction which they awaken? How could he reject the cry of his spiritual nature, and accept the barren contradictions of his lower mind?" Let us note a few sentences. "It is by consciousness alone that we know that God exists, or that we are able to offer him any service. It is only by conceiving Him as a Conscious Being, that we can stand in any religious relation to Him at all,—that we can form such a representation of Him as is demanded by our spiritual wants, insufficient though it be to satisfy our intellectual curiosity." "Personality comprises all that we know of that which exists; relation to personality comprises all that we know of that which seems to exist. And when, from the little world of man's consciousness and its objects, we would lift up our eyes to the inexhaustible universe beyond, and ask to whom all this is related, the highest existence is still the highest personality, and the Source of all Being reveals Himself by His name, 'I AM.'" "It is our duty, then, to think of God as personal; and it is our duty to believe that He is infinite." We may at this point quote with profit the words of that Book whose authority Mr. Mansel, without doubt, most heartily acknowledges. "And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." "I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth." Either God is personal or he is not. If he is, then all that we claim is conceded. If he is not personal, and "it is our duty to think" of him as personal, then it is our duty to think and believe a falsehood. This no man, at least neither Mr. Mansel nor any other enlightened man, can bring his mind to accept as a moral law. The soul instinctively asserts that obligation lies parallel with truth, and "that no lie is of the truth." So, then, there can be no duty except where truth is. And the converse may also be accepted, viz.: Where an enlightened sense of duty is, there is truth. When, therefore, so learned and truly spiritual a man as Mr. Mansel asserts "that it is our duty to think God personal, and believe him infinite," we unhesitatingly accept it as the utterance of a great fundamental truth in that spiritual realm which is the highest realm of being, and so, as one of the highest truths, and with it we accept all its logical consequences. It is a safe rule anywhere, that if two mental operations seem to clash, and one must be rejected, man should cling to, and trust in the higher—the teaching of the nobler nature. Thus will we do, and from the Divine's own ground will we see the destruction of his philosophy. "It is our duty to think of God as personal," because he is personal; and we know that he is personal because it is our duty to think him so. We need pay no regard to the perplexities of the Understanding. We soar with the eagle above the clouds, and float ever in the light of the Sun. The teachings of the Moral Sense are far more sure, safe, and satisfactory than any discursions of the lower faculty. Therefore it is man's wisdom, in all perplexity to heed the cry of his highest nature, and determine to stand on its teachings, as his highest knowledge, interpret all utterances by this, and reject all which contradict it. At the least, the declaration of this faculty is as valid as that of the lower, and is to be more trusted in every disagreement, because higher. Still further, no man would believe that God, in the most solemn, yea, awful moment of his Self-revelation, would declare a lie. The bare thought, fully formed, horrifies the soul as a blasphemy of the damned. Yet, in that supreme act, in the solitude of the Sinaitic wilderness, to one of the greatest, one of the profoundest, most devout of men, He revealed Himself by the pregnant words, "I AM": the most positive, the most unquestionable form in which He could utter the fact of His personality. This, then, and all that is involved in it, we accept as truth; and all perplexities must be interpreted by this surety.

In summing up the results to which an examination of the facts of consciousness conducted him, Mr. Mansel utters the following psychological error: "But a limit is necessarily conceived as a relation between something within and something without itself; and the consciousness of a limit of thought implies, though it does not directly present to us, the existence of something of which we do not and cannot think." Not so; for a limit may be seen to be wholly within the being to whom it belongs, and so not to be "a relation between something within and something without itself." This is precisely the case with the Deity. All relations and limits spring from within him, and there is nothing "without" to establish the relation claimed. This absence of all limit from without is rudely expressed in such common phrases as this: "It must be so in the nature of things." This "nature of things" is, in philosophical language, the system of a priori laws of the Universe, and these are necessary ideas in the Divine Reason. It appears, then, that what must be in the nature of things, finds its limits wholly within, and its relations established by the Deity.

With these remarks the author would close his criticism upon Mr. Mansel's book. We start from entirely different bases, and these two systems logically follow from their foundations. If Sir William Hamilton is right in his psychology, his follower is unquestionably right in his deductions. But if that psychology is partial, if besides the Understanding there is the Reason, if above the judgment stands the intuition, giving the final standard by which to measure that judgment, then is the philosophical system of the Divine utterly fallacious. The establishment of the validity of the Pure Reason is the annihilation of "the Philosophy of the Unconditioned." On the ground which the author has adopted, it is seen that "God is a spirit," infinite, absolute, self-conscious, personal; and a consistent interpretation of these terms has been given. We have found that certain objects may be seen as out of all relation, plurality, difference, or likeness. Consciousness and personality have also been found to involve no limit, in the proper sense of that term. On the contrary, the one was ascertained to be the light in which any or all objects might be seen under conditions of Time, or at once; and that this seeing was according to the capacity with which the being was endowed, and was not determined by any peculiarity of the consciousness; while the other appeared to be the highest possible form of existence, and that also in which God had revealed himself. From such a ground it is possible to go forward and construct a Rational Theology which shall verify by Reason the teachings of the Bible.

REVIEW OF MR. HERBERT SPENCER'S "FIRST PRINCIPLES."