All real being must be determined; only pure Nothing can be undetermined.Determinationis, however, one thing; andlimitationis essentially another thing. "Even space and time, though cognized solely by negative characteristics, are determined in so far as differentiated from the existences they contain; but this differentiation involves no limitation of their infinity." If all distinction is determination, and if all determination is negation, that is (as here used), limitation, then the infinite, as distinguished from the finite, loses its own infinity, and either becomes identical with the finite, or else vanishes into pure nothing. If Hamilton will persist in affirming that all determination is limitation, he has no other alternatives but to accept the doctrine of Absolute Nihilism, or of Absolute Identity. If the Absolute is the indeterminate--that is, no attributes, no consciousness, no relations--it is pure non-being. If the Infinite is "the One and All," then there is but one substance, one absolute entity.
Herbert Spencer professes to be carrying out, a step farther, the doctrine put into shape by Hamilton and Mansel, viz., "the philosophy of the Unconditioned." In other words, he carries that doctrine forward to its rigidly logical consequences, and utters the last word which Hamilton and Mansel dare not utter--"Apprehensible by us there is no God." The Ultimate Reality is absolutely unknown; it can not be apprehended by the human intellect, and it can not present itself to the intellect at all. This Ultimate Reality can not beintelligent, because to think is to condition, and the Absolute is the unconditioned; can not beconscious, because all consciousness is of plurality and difference, and the Absolute is one; can not bepersonal, because personality is determination or limitation, and the Infinite is the illimitable. It is "audacious," "irreverent," "impious," to apply any of these predicates to it; to regard it as Mind, or speak of it as Righteous.327The ultimate goal of the philosophy of the Unconditioned is a purely subjective Atheism.
And yet of this Primary Existence--inscrutable, andabsolutely unknown--Spencer knows something; knows as much as he pleases to know. He knows that this "ultimate of ultimates isForce,"328an "Omnipresent Power,"329is "One" and "Eternal."330He knows also that it can not be intelligent, self-conscious, and a personality.331This is a great deal to affirm and deny of an existence "absolutely unknown." May we not be permitted to affirm of this hidden and unknown something that it isconscious Mind, especially as Mind is admitted to be the only analogon of Power; and "theforceby which we produce change, and which serves to symbolize the causes of changes in general, is the final disclosure of analysis."332
Footnote 327:(return)"First Principles," pp. 111, 112.
Footnote 328:(return)"First Principles," p. 235.
Footnote 329:(return)Ibid., p. 99.
Footnote 330:(return)Ibid., p. 81.
Footnote 331:(return)Ibid., pp. 108-112.
Footnote 332:(return)Ibid., p. 235.
3. We advance to the review of the third fundamental principle of Hamilton's philosophy of the Unconditioned, viz., that the terms infinite and absolute are names for a "mere negation of thought"--a "mental impotence" to think, or, in other words, the absence of all the conditions under which thought is possible.
This principle is based upon a distinction between "positive" and "negative" thought, which is made with an air of wonderful precision and accuracy in "the Alphabet of Human Thought."333"Thinking ispositivewhen existence is predicated of an object." "Thinking isnegativewhen existence is not attributed to an object." "Negative thinking," therefore, is not the thinking of an object as devoid of this or that particular attribute, but as devoid of all attributes, and thus of all existence; that is, it is "the negation of all thought"--nothing. "When we think a thing, that is done by conceiving it as possessed of certain modes of being or qualities,and the sum of these qualities constitutes its concept or notion." "When we perform an act of negative thought, this is done by thinkingsomethingasnotexisting in this or that determinate mode; and when we think it as existing in no determinate mode,we cease to think at all--it becomes a nothing."334Now the Infinite,according to Hamilton, can not be thought in any determinate mode; therefore we do not think it at all, and therefore it is for us "a logical Non-entity."
Footnote 333:(return)"Discussions," Appendix I. p. 567.
Footnote 334:(return)"Logic," pp. 54, 55.
It is barely conceivable that Hamilton might imagine himself possessed of this singular power of "performing an act of negative thought"--that is, of thinking and not thinking at once, or of "thinking something" that "becomes nothing;" we are not conscious of any such power. To think without an object of thought, or to think of something without any qualities, or to think "something" which in the act of thought melts away into "nothing," is an absurdity and a contradiction. We can not think about nothing. All thought must have an object, and every object must have some predicate. Even space has some predicates--as receptivity, unity, and infinity. Thought can only be realized by thinking something existing, and existing in a determinate manner; and when we cease to think something having predicates, we cease to think at all. This is emphatically asserted by Hamilton himself.335"Negative thinking" is, therefore, a meaningless phrase, a contradiction in terms; it is no thought at all. We are cautioned, however, against regarding "the negation of thought" as "a negation of all mental ability." It is, we are told, "an attempt to think, and a failure in the attempt." An attempt to think aboutwhat? Surely it must be about some object, and an object which isknownby some sign, else there can be no thought. Let any one make the attempt to think without something to think about, and he will find that both the process and the result are blank nothingness. All thought, therefore, as Calderwood has amply shown, is, must be,positive. "Thought is nothing else than the comparison of objects known; and as knowledge is always positive, so must our thought be. All knowledge implies an objectknown; and so all thought involves an object about which we think, and must, therefore, be positive--that is, it must embrace within itself the conception of certain qualities as belonging to the object."336
Footnote 335:(return)"Logic," p. 55.
Footnote 336:(return)"Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 272.
The conclusion of Hamilton's reasoning in regard to "negative thinking" is, that we can form no notion of the Infinite Being. We have no positive idea of such a Being. We can think of him only by "the thinking away of every characteristic" which can be conceived, and thus "ceasing to think at all." We can only form a "negative concept," which, we are told, "is in fact no concept at all." We can form only a "negative notion," which, we are informed, "is only the negation of a notion." This is the impenetrable abyss of total gloom and emptiness into which the philosophy of the conditions leads us at last.337
Footnote 337:(return)Whilst Spencer accepts the general doctrine of Hamilton, that the Ultimate Reality is inscrutable, he argues earnestly against his assertion that the Absolute is a "mere negation of thought.""Every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is demonstrated distinctly postulates thepositive existenceof something beyond the relative. To say we can not know the Absolute is, by implication, to affirm thereisan Absolute. In the very denial of our power to learnwhatthe Absolute is, there lies hidden the assumptionthatit is; and the making of this assumption proves that the Absolute has been present to the mind, not as nothing, but assomething. And so with every step in the reasoning by which the doctrine is upheld, the Noumenon, everywhere named as the antithesis of the Phenomenon, is throughout thought as actuality. It is rigorously impossible to conceive that our knowledge is a knowledge of appearances only, without, at the same time, conceiving a Reality of which these are appearances, for appearances without reality are unthinkable."Truly to represent or realize in thought any one of the propositions of which the argument consists, the unconditioned must be represented aspositive, and not negative. How, then, can it be a legitimate conclusion from the argument that our consciousness of it is negative? An argument, the very construction of which assigns to a certain term a certain meaning, but which ends in showing that this term has no meaning, is simply an elaborate suicide. Clearly, then, the very demonstration that a definite consciousness [comprehension] of the Absolute is impossible, unavoidably presupposes an indefinite consciousness of it [an apprehension]."--"First Principles," p. 88.
"Every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is demonstrated distinctly postulates thepositive existenceof something beyond the relative. To say we can not know the Absolute is, by implication, to affirm thereisan Absolute. In the very denial of our power to learnwhatthe Absolute is, there lies hidden the assumptionthatit is; and the making of this assumption proves that the Absolute has been present to the mind, not as nothing, but assomething. And so with every step in the reasoning by which the doctrine is upheld, the Noumenon, everywhere named as the antithesis of the Phenomenon, is throughout thought as actuality. It is rigorously impossible to conceive that our knowledge is a knowledge of appearances only, without, at the same time, conceiving a Reality of which these are appearances, for appearances without reality are unthinkable.
"Truly to represent or realize in thought any one of the propositions of which the argument consists, the unconditioned must be represented aspositive, and not negative. How, then, can it be a legitimate conclusion from the argument that our consciousness of it is negative? An argument, the very construction of which assigns to a certain term a certain meaning, but which ends in showing that this term has no meaning, is simply an elaborate suicide. Clearly, then, the very demonstration that a definite consciousness [comprehension] of the Absolute is impossible, unavoidably presupposes an indefinite consciousness of it [an apprehension]."--"First Principles," p. 88.
Still we have the wordinfinite, and we havethe notionwhich the word expresses. This, at least, is spared to us by Sir William Hamilton. He who says we have no such notion asks the questionhow we have it?Here it may be asked, how have we, then, the word infinite? How have we the notion which this word expresses? The answer to this question is contained in the distinction of positive and negative thought.
We have a positive concept of a thing when we think of it by the qualities of which it is the complement. But as the attribution of qualities is an affirmation, as affirmation and negation are relatives, and as relativesare known only in and through each other, we can not, therefore, have aconsciousnessof the affirmation of any quality without having, at the same time, thecorrelative consciousnessof its negation. Now the one consciousness is a positive, the other consciousness is a negative notion; and as all language is the reflex of thought, the positive and negative notions are expressed by positive and negative names. Thus it is with the Infinite.338Now let us carefully scrutinize the above deliverance. We are told that "relatives are known only in and through each other;" that is, such relatives asfiniteandinfiniteare known necessarily in the same act of thought. The knowledge of one is as necessary as the knowledge of the other. We can not have a consciousness of the one without the correlative consciousness of the other. "For," says Hamilton, "a relation is, in truth, a thought, one and indivisible; and while the thinking a relationnecessarily involves the thought of its two terms,, so it is, with equal necessity, itself involved in the thought of either." If, then, we areconsciousof the two terms of the relation in the same "one and indivisible" mental act--if we can not have "the consciousness of the one without the consciousness of the other"--if space and position, time and succession, substance and quality, infinite and finite, are given to us in pairs, then 'theknowledge of one is as necessary as the knowledge of the other,' and they must stand or fall together. The finite is known no more positively than the infinite; the infinite is known as positively as the finite. The one can not be taken and the other left. The infinite, discharged from all relation to the finite, could never come into apprehension; and the finite, discharged of all relation to the infinite, is incognizable too. "There can be no objection to call the one 'positive' and the other 'negative,' provided it be understood thateachis so with regard to the other, and thatthe relation is convertible; the finite, for instance, being the negative of the infinite, not less than the infinite of the finite."339
Footnote 338:(return)Logic,p. 73.
Footnote 339:(return)Martineau's "Essays," p. 237.
To say that the finite is comprehensible in and by itself, and the infinite is incomprehensible in and by itself, is to make an assertion utterly at variance both with psychology and logic. The finite is no more comprehensiblein itselfthan the infinite. "Relatives are known only in and through each other."340] "The conception of one term of a relation necessarily implies that of the other, it being the very nature of a relative to be thinkable only through the conjunct thought of its correlative." We comprehend nothing more completely than the infinite; "for the idea of illimitation is as clear, precise, and intelligible as the idea of limitability, which is its basis. The propositions "A is X" "A is not X," are equally comprehensible; the conceptions A and X are in both cases positive data of experience, while the affirmation and negation consist solely in the copulative or disjunctive nature of the predication. Consequently, if X is comprehensible, so is not--X; if the finite is comprehensible, so is the infinite."341
Whilst denying that the infinite can by us beknown, Hamilton tells us he is "far from denying that it is, must, and ought to bebelieved."342"We must believe in the infinity of God." "Faith--belief--is the organ by which we apprehend what is beyond knowledge."343We heartily assent to the doctrine that the Infinite Being is the object of faith, but we earnestly deny that the Infinite Being is not an object of knowledge. May not knowledge be grounded upon faith, and does not faith imply knowledge? Can we not obtain knowledge through faith? Is not the belief in the Infinite Being implied in our knowledge of finite existence? If so, then God as the infinite and perfect, God as the unconditioned Cause, is not absolutely "the unknown."
Footnote 340:(return)Hamilton's "Logic," p. 73.
Footnote 341:(return)North American Review, October, 1864, article "Conditioned and the Unconditioned," pp. 441, 442.
Footnote 342:(return)Letter to Calderwood, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 530.
Footnote 343:(return)"Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 374.
A full exposition of Sir William Hamilton's views ofFaithin its connection with Philosophy would have been deeply interesting to us, and it would have filled up a gap in the interpretation of his system. The question naturally presents itself, how would he have discriminated between faith and knowledge, so as to assign to each its province? If our notion of the Infinite Being rests entirely upon faith, then upon what ultimate ground does faith itself rest? On the authority of Scripture, of the Church, or of reason? The only explicit statement of his view which has fallen in our way is a note in his edition of Reid.344"Weknowwhat rests upon reason; webelievewhat rests upon authority. But reason itself must rest at last upon authority; for the original data of reason do not rest upon reason, but are necessarily accepted by reason on the authority of what is beyond itself. These data are, therefore, in rigid propriety, Beliefs or Trusts. Thus it is that, in the last resort, we must, per force, philosophically admit that belief is the primary condition of reason, and not reason the ultimate ground of belief."
Footnote 344:(return)P. 760; also Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, p. 61.
Here we have, first, an attempted distinction between faith and knowledge. "Weknowwhat rests upon reason;" that is, whatever we obtain by deduction or induction, whatever is capable of explication and proof, isknowledge. "Webelievewhat rests upon authority;" that is, whatever we obtain by intellectual intuition or pure apperception, and is incapable of explication and of proof, is "abelief or trust." These instinctive beliefs, which are, as it were, the first principles upon which all knowledge rests, are, however, indiscriminately called by Hamilton "cognitions," "beliefs," "judgments." He declares most explicitly "that the principles of our knowledge must themselves beknowledges;"345and these first principles, which are "the primary condition of reason," are elsewhere called "Ã priori cognitions;" also "native, pure, or transcendentalknowledge," in contradistinction to "Ã posteriori cognitions," or thatknowledge which is obtained in the exercise of reason.346All this confusion results from an attempt to put asunder what God has joined together. As Clemens of Alexandria has said, "Neither is faith without knowledge, nor knowledge without faith." All faith implies knowledge, and all knowledge implies faith. They are mingled in the one operation of the human mind, by which we apprehend first principles or ultimate truths. These have their light and dark side, as Hamilton has remarked. They afford enough light to showthatthey are and must be, and thus communicate knowledge; they furnish no light to showhowthey are andwhythey are, and under that aspect demand the exercise of faith. There must, therefore, first be somethingknownbefore there can be anyfaith.347
Footnote 345:(return)Ibid., p. 69.
Footnote 346:(return)"Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 26.
Footnote 347:(return)M'Cosh, "Intuitions," pp. 197, 198; Calderwood, "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 24.
And now we seem to have penetrated to the centre of Hamilton's philosophy, and the vital point may be touched by one crucial question,Upon what ultimate ground does faith itself rest?Hamilton says, "we believe what rests uponauthority." But what is that authority? I. It is not the authority of Divine Revelation, because beliefs are called "instinctive," "native," "innate," "common," "catholic,"348all which terms seem to indicate that this "authority" lies within the sphere of the human mind; at any rate, this faith does not rest on the authority of Scripture. Neither is it the authority of Reason. "The original data of reason [the first principles of knowledge] do not rest upon the authority of reason, buton the authority of what is beyond itself." The question thus recurs, what is this ultimate ground beyond reason upon which faith rests? Does it rest upon any thing, or nothing?
Footnote 348:(return)Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton, pp. 68, 69.
The answer to this question is given in the so-called "Law of the Conditioned," which is thus laid down: "All that is conceivable in thought lies between two extremes, which, as contradictory of each other, can not both be true, but of which, as mutual contradictories, one must." For example, we conceivespace, butwe can not conceive it as absolutely bounded or infinitely unbounded. We can conceivetime, but we can not conceive it as having an absolute commencement or an infinite non-commencement. We can conceive ofdegree, but we can not conceive it as absolutely limited or as infinitely unlimited. We can conceive ofexistence, but not as an absolute part or an infinite whole. Therefore, "the Conditioned is that which is alone conceivable or cogitable; the Unconditioned, that which is inconceivable or incogitable. The conditioned, or the thinkable, lies between two extremes or poles; and each of these extremes or poles are unconditioned, each of them inconceivable, each of them exclusive or contradictory of the other. Of these two repugnant opposites, the one is that of Unconditional or Absolute Limitation; the other that of Unconditional or Infinite Illimitation, or, more simply, the Absolute and the Infinite; the termabsoluteexpressing that which is finished or complete, the terminfinitethat which can not be terminated or concluded."349
"The conditioned is the mean between two extremes--two inconditionates, exclusive of each other, neither of whichcan be conceived as possible, but of which, on the principle of contradiction, and excluded middle,one must be admitted as necessary. We are thus warned from recognizing the domain of our knowledge as necessarily co-extensive with the horizon of our faith. And by awonderful revelation, we are thus, in the very consciousness of our inability to conceive aught above the relative and the finite,inspired with a belief inthe existence of something unconditioned beyond the sphere of all comprehensible reality."350Here, then, we have found the ultimate ground of our faith in the Infinite God. It is built upon a "mental imbecility," and buttressed up by "contradictions!"351
Footnote 349:(return)"Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 368, 374. With Hamilton, the Unconditioned is a genus, of which the Infinite and Absolute are species.
Footnote 350:(return)"Discussions on Philosophy," p. 22.
Footnote 351:(return)The warmest admirers of Sir William Hamilton hesitate to apply the doctrine of the unconditioned to Cause and Free-will. See "Mansel's Prolegom.," Note C, p. 265.
Such a faith, however, is built upon the clouds, and the whole structure of this philosophy is "a castle in the air"--an attempt to organize Nescience into Science, and evoke something out of nothing. To pretend to believe in that respecting which I can form no notion is in reality not to believe at all. The nature which compels me to believe in the Infinite must supply me some object upon which my belief can take hold. We can not believe in contradictions. Our faith must be a rational belief--a faith in the ultimate harmony and unity of all truth, in the veracity and integrity of human reason as the organ of truth; and, above all, a faith in the veracity of God, who is the author and illuminator of our mental constitution. "We can not suppose that we are created capable of intelligence in order to be made victims of delusion--that God is a deceiver, and the root of our nature a lie."352We close our review of Hamilton by remarking:
Footnote 352:(return)Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, p. 21.
1. "The Law of the Conditioned," as enounced by Hamilton, is contradictory. It predicates contradiction of two extremes, which are asserted to be equally incomprehensible and incognizable. If they are utterly incognizable, how does Hamiltonknowthat they are contradictory? The mutualrelationof two objects is said to be known, but the objects themselves are absolutely unknown. But how can we know any relation except by an act of comparison, and how can we compare two objects so as to affirm their relation, if the objects are absolutely unknown? "The Infinite is defined as Unconditional Illimitation; the Absolute as Conditional Limitation. Yet almost in the same breath we are told that each is utterly inconceivable, each the mere negation of thought. On the one hand, we are told theydiffer; on the other, we are told they donot differ. Now which does Hamilton mean? If he insist upon the definitions as yielding a ground of conceivable difference, he must abandon the inconceivability; but if he insist upon the inconceivability, he must abandon the definition as sheer verbiage, devoid of all conceivable meaning. There is no possibleescape from this dilemma. Further, two negations can never contradict; for contradiction is the asserting and the denying of the same proposition; two denials can not conflict. If Illimitation is negative, Limitation, its contradictory, is positive, whether conditional or unconditional. In brief, if the Infinite and Absolute are wholly incomprehensible, they are not distinguishable; but if they are distinguishable, they are not wholly incomprehensible. If they are indistinguishable, they are to us identical; and identity precludes contradiction. But if they are distinguishable, distinction is made by difference, which involves positive cognition; hence one, at least, must be conceivable. It follows, therefore, by inexorable logic, that either the contradiction or the inconceivability must be abandoned."353
Footnote 353:(return)North American Review, October, 1864, pp. 407, 408.
2. "The Law of the Conditioned," as a ground of faith in the Infinite Being, is utterly void, meaningless, and ineffectual. Let us re-state it in Hamilton's own words: "The conditioned is themeanbetween two extremes, two inconditionates exclusive of each other, neither of whichcan be conceived as possible, but of which, on the principle of Contradiction and Excluded Middle,one must be admitted as necessary." It is scarcely needful to explain to the intelligent reader the above logical principles; that they may, however, be clearly before the mind in this connection, we state that the principle of Contradiction is this: "A thing can not at the same time be and not be;A is,A is not, are propositions which can not both be true at once." The principle of Excluded Middle is this: "A thing either is or is not--A either is or is not B; there is nomedium."354Now, to mention the law of Excluded Middle and two contradictories with ameanbetween them, in the same sentence, is really astounding. "If the two contradictory extremes are equally incogitable, yet include a cogitable mean, why insist upon thenecessity of accepting either extreme? This necessity of accepting one of the contradictories is wholly based upon the supposed impossibility of amean; if a mean exists,thatmay be true, and both contradictories together false. But if a mean between two contradictories be both impossible and absurd, Hamilton's 'conditioned' entirely vanishes."355If both contradictories are equally unknown and equally unthinkable, we can not discoverwhy, on his principles, we are bound to believeeither.
Footnote 354:(return)Hamilton's "Logic," pp. 58, 59; "Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 368.
Footnote 355:(return)North British Review, October, 1864, pp. 415, 416.
3. The whole of this confusion in thought and expression results from the habit of confounding the sensuous imagination with the non-sensuous reason, and the consequent co-ordination of an imageable conception with an abstract idea. The objects of sense and the sensuous imagination may be characterized as extension, limitation, figure, position, etc.; the objects of the non-sensuous reason may be characterized as universality, eternity, infinity. I can form animageof an extended and figured object, but I can not form animageof space, time, or God; neither, indeed, can I form an image of Goodness, Justice, or Truth. But I can have a clear and precise idea of space, and time, and God, as I can of Justice, Goodness, and Truth. There are many things which I can most surelyknowthat I can not possiblycomprehend, if to comprehend is to form a mental image of a thing. There is nothing which I more certainly know than that space is infinite, and eternity unbeginning and endless; but I can not comprehend the infinity of space or the illimitability of eternity. I know that God is, that he is a being of infinite perfection, but I can not throw my thoughts around and comprehend the infinity of God.
(iv.) We come, lastly, to consider the position of theDogmatic Theologians.356In their zeal to demonstrate the necessity of Divine Revelation, and to vindicate for it the honor of supplying to us all our knowledge of God, they assail every fundamental principle of reason, often by the very weapons which aresupplied by an Atheistical philosophy. As a succinct presentation of the views of this school, we select the "Theological Institutes" of R. Watson.
Footnote 356:(return)Ellis, Leland, Locke, and Horsley, whose writings are extensively quoted in Watson's "Institutes of Theology" (reprinted by Carlton & Lanahan, New York).
1st. The invalidity of "the principle of causality" is asserted by this author. "We allow that the argument which proves that theeffectswith which we are surrounded have beencaused, and thus leads us up through a chain of subordinate causes to one First Cause, has a simplicity, an obviousness, and a force which, when we are previously furnished with the idea of God, makes it, at first sight, difficult to conceive that men, under any degree of cultivation, should be inadequate to it; yet if ever the human mind commenced such an inquiry at all, it is highly probable that it would rest in the notion of aneternal succession of causes and effects, rather than acquire the ideas of creation, in the proper sense, and of a Supreme Creator."357"We feel that our reason rests with full satisfaction in the doctrine that all things are created by one eternal and self-existent Being; but the Greek philosophers held that matter was eternally co-existent with God. This was the opinion of Plato, who has been called the Moses of philosophy."358
For a defense of "the principle of causality" we must refer the reader to our remarks on the philosophy of Comte. We shall now only remark on one or two peculiarities in the above statement which betray an utter misapprehension of the nature of the argument. We need scarcely direct attention to the unfortunate and, indeed, absurd phrase, "an eternal succession of causes and effects." An "eternal succession" is acontradictio in adjecto, and as such inconceivable and unthinkable. No human mind can "rest" in any such thing, because an eternal succession is no rest at all. All "succession" is finite and temporal, capable of numeration, and therefore can not be eternal.359Again, in attaining the conception of a First Cause the human mind does not pass up "through a chain of subordinate causes," either definite or indefinite, "to one First Cause."
Footnote 357:(return)Watson's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 273.
Footnote 358:(return)Id., ib., vol. i. p. 21.
Footnote 359:(return)Seeante, pp. 181, 182, ch. v.
Let us re-state the principle of causality as a universal and necessary law of thought. "All phenomena present themselves to us as the expression ofPOWER, and refer us to a causal ground whence they issue." That "power" is intuitively and spontaneously apprehended by the human mind as Supreme and Ultimate--"the causal ground" is a personal God. All the phenomena of nature present themselves to us as "effects," and we know nothing of "subordinate causes" except as modes of the Divine Efficiency.360The principle of causality compels us to think causation behind nature, and under causation to think of Volition. "Other forces we have no sort of ground for believing; or, except by artifices of abstraction, even power of conceiving. The dynamic idea is either this or nothing; and the logical alternative assuredly is that nature is either a mere Time-march of phenomena or an expression of Mind."361The true doctrine of philosophy, of science, and of revelation is not simply that God did create "in the beginning," but that he still creates. All the operations of Nature are the operations of the Divine Mind. "Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth."362
Footnote 360:(return)The modern doctrine of the Correlation and Homogenity of all Forces clearly proves that they are not many, butone--"a dynamic self-identity masked by transmigration."--Martineau's "Essays," pp. 134-144.
Footnote 361:(return)Martineau's "Essays," pp. 140, 141.
Footnote 362:(return)Psalm civ.
The assertion that Plato taught "the eternity of matter," and that consequently he did not arrive at the idea of a Supreme and Ultimate Cause, is incapable of proof. The term ὕλη = matter does not occur in the writings of Plato, or, indeed, of any of his predecessors, and is peculiarly Aristotelian. The ground of the world of sense is called by Plato "the receptacle" (ὑποδοχή), "the nurse" (τιθήνη) of all that is produced, and was apparently identified, in his mind, withpure space--a logical rather than a physical entity--the mere negative condition and medium of Divine manifestation. He never regards it as a "cause," or ascribes to it any efficiency. We grant thathe places this very indefinite something (á½Ï€Î¿Î¹Î¿Î½Î¿á¿¦Î½ τι) out of the sphere of temporal origination; but it must be borne in mind that he speaks of "creation in eternity" as well as of "creation in time;" and of time itself, though created, as "an eternal image of the generating Father."363This one thing, at any rate, can not be denied, that Plato recognizes creation in its fullest sense as the act of God.
The admission that something has always existed besides the Deity, as a mere logical condition of the exercise of divine power (e.g., space), would not invalidate the argument for the existence of God. The proof of the Divine Existence, as Chalmers has shown, does not rest on the existence of matter, but on the orderly arrangement of matter; and the grand question of Theism is not whether thematter of the world, but whether thepresent order of the worldhad a commencement.364
2d. Doubt is cast by our author upon the validity of "the principle of the Unconditioned or the Infinite." "Supposing it were conceded that some faint glimmering of this great truth [the existence of a First Cause] might, by induction, have been discovered by contemplative minds, by what means could they havedemonstratedto themselves that he is eternal, self-existent, immortal, and independent?"365"Between things visible and invisible, time and eternity, beings finite and beings infinite, objects of sense and objects of faith,the connection is not perceptibleto human observation. Though we push our researches, therefore, to the extreme point whither the light of nature can carry us, they will in the end be abruptly terminated, and we must stop short at an immeasurable distance between the creature and the Creator."366
Footnote 363:(return)Plato, "Timæus," § xiv.
Footnote 364:(return)Chalmers's "Natural Theology," bk. i. ch. v.; also Mahan's "Natural Theology," pp. 21-23.
Footnote 365:(return)Watson's "Institutes of Theol.," vol. i. p. 274.
Footnote 366:(return)Id., ib., vol. i. p. 273.
To this assertion that the connection of things visible and things invisible, finite and infinite, objects of sense and objects of faith, is utterly imperceptible to human thought, we mightreply by quoting the words of that Sacred Book whose supreme authority our author is seeking, by this argument, to establish. "Theinvisiblethings of God, even his eternal power and god-head, from the creation, are clearlyseen, beingunderstood by the things which are made." We may also point to the fact that in every age and in every land the human mind has spontaneously and instinctively recognized the existence of an invisible Power and Presence pervading nature and controlling the destinies of man, and that religious worship--prayer, and praise, and sacrifice--offered to that unseen yet omnipresent Power is an universal fact of human nature. The recognition of animmediateand anecessary"connection" between the visible and the invisible, the objects of sense and the objects of faith, is one of the most obvious facts of consciousness--of universal consciousness as revealed in history, and of individual consciousness as developed in every rational mind.
That this connection is "not perceptible to human observation," if by this our author means "not perceptible to sense," we readily admit. No one ever asserted it was perceptible to human observation. We say that this connection is perceptible to humanreason, and is revealed in every attempt to think about, and seek an explanation of, the phenomenal world. The Phenomenal and the Real, Genesis and Being, Space and Extension, Succession and Duration, Time and Eternity, the Finite and the Infinite, are correlatives which are given in one and the same indivisible act of thought. "The conception of one term of a relation necessarily implies that of the other; it being the very nature of a correlative to be thinkable only through the conjunct thought of its correlative; for a relation is, in truth, a thought one and indivisible; and whilst the thinking of one relation necessarily involves the thought of its two terms, so it is, with equal necessity, itself involved in the thought of either."367Finite, dependent, contingent, temporal existence, therefore, necessarily supposes infinite, self-existent, independent, eternal Being; the Conditioned and Relativeimplies the Unconditioned and Absolute--one is known only in and through the other. But inasmuch as the unconditioned is cognized solelyà priori, and the conditioned solelyà posteriori, the recognition by the human mind of their necessary correlation becomes the bridge whereby the chasm between the subjective and the objective may be spanned, and whereby Thought may be brought face to face with Existence.
Footnote 367:(return)Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 536, 537.
The reverence which, from boyhood, we have entertained for the distinguished author of the "Institutes" restrains us from speaking in adequate terms of reprobation of the statement that "theFirst Cause" may be known, and yet not conceived "as eternal, self-existent, immortal, and independent". Surely that which is the ground and reason of all existence must have the ground and reason of its own existence in itself. That which isfirstin the order of existence, and in the logical order of thought, can have nothing prior to itself. If the supposed First Cause is not necessarily self-existent and independent, it is not thefirst; if it has a dependent existence, there must be a prior being on which it depends. If the First Cause is not eternal, then prior to this Ultimate Cause there was nothingness and vacuity, and pure nothing, by its own act, became something. But "Ex nihilo nihil" is a universal law of thought. To ask the question whether the First Cause be self-existent and eternal, is, in effect, to ask the question "who made God?" and this is not the question of an adult theologian, but of a little child. Surely Mr. Watson must have penned the above passage without any reflection on its real import368.
Footnote 368:(return)In an article on "the Impending Revolution in Anglo-Saxon Theology" Methodist Quarterly Review, (July, 1863), Dr. Warren seems to take it for granted that the "aiteological" and "teleological" arguments for the existence of God are utterly invalidated by the Dynamical theory of matter. "Once admit thatreal powercan and does reside in matter, and all these reasonings fail. If inherent forces of matter are competent to the production of all the innumerable miracles of movement in the natural world, what is there in the natural world which they can not produce. If allthe exertions of powerin the universe can be accounted for without resort to something back of, and superior to, nature, what is there which can force the mind to such a resort?" (p. 463). "Having granted thatpower, orself-activity, is a natural attribute of all matter, what right have we to deny itintelligence?" (p. 465). "Self-moving matter must have thought and design" (p. 469).It is not our intention to offer an extended criticism of the above positions in this note. We shall discuss "the Dynamical theory" more fully in a subsequent work. If the theory apparently accepted by Dr. Warren be true, that "the ultimate atoms of matter are as uniformly efficient as minds, and that we have the same ground to regard the force exerted by the oneinnateandnaturalas that exerted by the other" (p. 464), then we grant that the conclusions of Dr. Warren, as above stated, are unavoidable. We proceed one step farther, and boldly assert that the existence of God is, on this hypothesis, incapable of proof, and the only logical position Dr. Warren can occupy is that of spiritualistic Pantheism.Dr. Warren asserts that "the Dynamical theory of matter" is now generally accepted by "Anglo-Saxonnaturalists." "One can scarcely open a scientific treatise without observing the altered stand-point" (p. 160). We confess that we are disappointed with Dr. Warren's treatment of this simple question of fact. On so fundamental an issue, the Doctor ought to have given the name of at leastone"naturalist" who asserts that "the ultimate atoms of matter are as uniformly efficient as minds." Leibnitz, Morrell, Ulrici, Hickok, the authorities quoted by him, are metaphysicians and idealists of the extremest school. At present we shall, therefore, content ourselves with a general denial of this wholesale statement of Dr. Warren; and we shall sustain that denial by a selection from the many authorities we shall hereafter present. "No particle of matter possesses within itself the power of changing its existing state of motion or of rest. Matter has no spontaneous power either of rest or motion, but is equally susceptible to each as it may be acted on byexternalcauses" (Silliman's "Principles of Physics," p. 13). The above proposition is "a truth on which the whole science of mechanical philosophy ultimately depends" (Encyclopædia Britannica, art. "Dynamics," vol. viii. p. 326). "A material substance existing alone in the universe could not produce any effects. There is not, so far as we know, a self-acting material substance in the universe" (M'Cosh, "Divine Government, Physical and Moral," p. 78). "Perhaps the only true indication of matter isinertia." "The cause of gravitation isnot residentin the particles of matter merely," but also "in all space" (Dr. Faraday on "Conservation of Force," in "Correlation and Conservation of Force." (p. 368). He also quotes with approbation the words of Newton, "That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, is so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophic matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it" p. 368). "The 'force of gravity' is an improper expression" (p. 340). "Forces are transformable, indestructible, and,in contradistinction from matter, imponderable" (p. 346). "The first cause of things is Deity" (Dr. Mayer, in "Correlation and Conservation of Force," p. 341). "Although the wordcausemay be used in a secondary and subordinate sense, as meaning antecedent forces, yet in an abstract sense it is totally inapplicable; we can not predicate of any physical agent that it is abstractedly the cause of another" (p. 15). "Causation is thewill," "creation is the act, of God" Grove on "Correlation of Physical Forces," (p. 199). "Between gravity and motion it is impossible to establish the equation required for a rightly-conceivedcausalrelation" ("Correlation and Conservation of Force," p. 253). See also Herschel's "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 234.It certainly must have required a wonderful effort of imagination on the part of Dr. Warren to transform "weight" and "density," mere passive affections of matter, into self-activity, intelligence, thought, and design. Weight or density are merely relative terms. Supposing one particle or mass of matter to exist alone, and there can be no attractive or gravitating force. There must be a cause of gravity which is distinct from matter.
It is not our intention to offer an extended criticism of the above positions in this note. We shall discuss "the Dynamical theory" more fully in a subsequent work. If the theory apparently accepted by Dr. Warren be true, that "the ultimate atoms of matter are as uniformly efficient as minds, and that we have the same ground to regard the force exerted by the oneinnateandnaturalas that exerted by the other" (p. 464), then we grant that the conclusions of Dr. Warren, as above stated, are unavoidable. We proceed one step farther, and boldly assert that the existence of God is, on this hypothesis, incapable of proof, and the only logical position Dr. Warren can occupy is that of spiritualistic Pantheism.
Dr. Warren asserts that "the Dynamical theory of matter" is now generally accepted by "Anglo-Saxonnaturalists." "One can scarcely open a scientific treatise without observing the altered stand-point" (p. 160). We confess that we are disappointed with Dr. Warren's treatment of this simple question of fact. On so fundamental an issue, the Doctor ought to have given the name of at leastone"naturalist" who asserts that "the ultimate atoms of matter are as uniformly efficient as minds." Leibnitz, Morrell, Ulrici, Hickok, the authorities quoted by him, are metaphysicians and idealists of the extremest school. At present we shall, therefore, content ourselves with a general denial of this wholesale statement of Dr. Warren; and we shall sustain that denial by a selection from the many authorities we shall hereafter present. "No particle of matter possesses within itself the power of changing its existing state of motion or of rest. Matter has no spontaneous power either of rest or motion, but is equally susceptible to each as it may be acted on byexternalcauses" (Silliman's "Principles of Physics," p. 13). The above proposition is "a truth on which the whole science of mechanical philosophy ultimately depends" (Encyclopædia Britannica, art. "Dynamics," vol. viii. p. 326). "A material substance existing alone in the universe could not produce any effects. There is not, so far as we know, a self-acting material substance in the universe" (M'Cosh, "Divine Government, Physical and Moral," p. 78). "Perhaps the only true indication of matter isinertia." "The cause of gravitation isnot residentin the particles of matter merely," but also "in all space" (Dr. Faraday on "Conservation of Force," in "Correlation and Conservation of Force." (p. 368). He also quotes with approbation the words of Newton, "That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, is so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophic matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it" p. 368). "The 'force of gravity' is an improper expression" (p. 340). "Forces are transformable, indestructible, and,in contradistinction from matter, imponderable" (p. 346). "The first cause of things is Deity" (Dr. Mayer, in "Correlation and Conservation of Force," p. 341). "Although the wordcausemay be used in a secondary and subordinate sense, as meaning antecedent forces, yet in an abstract sense it is totally inapplicable; we can not predicate of any physical agent that it is abstractedly the cause of another" (p. 15). "Causation is thewill," "creation is the act, of God" Grove on "Correlation of Physical Forces," (p. 199). "Between gravity and motion it is impossible to establish the equation required for a rightly-conceivedcausalrelation" ("Correlation and Conservation of Force," p. 253). See also Herschel's "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 234.
It certainly must have required a wonderful effort of imagination on the part of Dr. Warren to transform "weight" and "density," mere passive affections of matter, into self-activity, intelligence, thought, and design. Weight or density are merely relative terms. Supposing one particle or mass of matter to exist alone, and there can be no attractive or gravitating force. There must be a cause of gravity which is distinct from matter.