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 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE 
 CONDITIONED 
 
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 Ilrprintcb, foith ^bbitions, from " (ibc Contcm}jorunt licbicb."
 
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 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE 
 CONDITIONED 
 
 Comprising some Retnarks on Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy 
 and on Mr. J. S. Mill's Examination of that Philosophy 
 
 By H. L. M^NSEL, b.d. 
 
 VVAYNFLETE I'ROFESSOR OF MOKAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOrHV IN THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 ^%#- 
 
 ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER 
 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK 
 
 1 866
 
 MUIR AND PATERSON, PKINTEllS, EDINBURGH.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The circumstance that the following remarks 
 were originally published as an anonymous 
 article in a Review, will best explain the 
 style in which they are written. Absence 
 from England prevented me from becoming 
 acquainted with Mr, Mill's Examination of 
 Sir William Hamilton s Philosophy till some 
 time after its publication ; and when I was 
 requested to undertake the task of reviewing 
 it, 1 was still ignorant of its contents. On 
 proceeding to fulfil my engagement, I soon
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 discovered, not only that the character of 
 the book was very different from what the 
 author's reputation had led me to expect, 
 but also tlmt my task would be one, not 
 merely of criticism, but, in some degree, of 
 self-defence. The remarks on myself, coming 
 from a writer of Mr. Mill's ability and repu- 
 tation, were such as I could not pass over 
 without notice ; while, at the same time, I 
 felt that my principal duty in this instance 
 was the defence of one who was no longer 
 living to defend himself. Under these cir- 
 cumstances, the best course appeared to be, 
 to devote the greater portion of my article 
 to an exposition and vindication of Sir W. 
 Hamilton's teaching ; and, in the additional 
 remarks which it was necessary to make on 
 the more personal part of the controversy, 
 to speak of myself in the third person, as
 
 PREFxVCE. Vll 
 
 I should have spoken of any other writer. 
 The form thus adopted has been retained in 
 the present republication, though the article 
 now a^^pears with the name of its author. 
 
 My original intention of writing a review 
 of the entire book was necessarily abandoned 
 as soon as I became acquainted with its 
 contents. To liave done justice to the wdiole 
 subject, or to Mr. Mill's treatment of it, 
 would have required a volume nearly as 
 large as his own. I therefore determined 
 to confine myself to the Philosophy of the 
 Conditioned, both as the most original and 
 important portion of Sir W. Hamilton's 
 teaching, and as that which occupies the 
 first place in Mr. Mill's Examination.
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 rriHE reader of Plato's Republic will 
 readily recall to mind that wonderful 
 passage at the end of the sixth book, in 
 which the philosopher, under the image of 
 geometrical lines, exhibits the various re- 
 lations of the intelligible to the sensible 
 world ; especially his lofty aspirations with 
 regard to '* that second segment of the in- 
 telligible world, which reason of itself grasps 
 by the power of dialectic, employing hypo- 
 theses, not as principles, but as veritable 
 
 A
 
 2 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 hypotheses, that is to say, as steps and 
 starting-points, in order that it may ascend 
 as far as the unconditioned (i^^xP'^ '^^^^ awn-o- 
 Qiroii), to the first principle of the universe, 
 and having grasped this, may then hiy hold 
 of the principles next adjacent to it, and 
 so go dov^n to the end, using no sensible 
 aids whatever, but employing abstract forms 
 throughout, and terminating in forms." 
 
 This quotation is important for our present 
 purpose in two ways. In the first place, it 
 may serve, at the outset of our remarks, to 
 propitiate those plain-spoken English critics 
 who look upon new terms in philosophy with 
 the same suspicion with which Jack Cade 
 regarded •" a noun and a verb, and such 
 abominable words as no Christian ear can 
 endure to hear," by showing that the head 
 and front of our offending, "the Uncondi-
 
 The PJiilosopliy of the Conditioned. 3 
 
 tioned," is no modern invention of Teutonic 
 barbarism, but sanctioned even by the Attic 
 elegance of a Plato. And in the second 
 place, it contains almost a histoiy in minia- 
 ture of the highest speculations of philo- 
 sophy, both in earlier and in later times, and 
 points out, with a clearness and precision 
 the more valuable because uninfluenced by 
 recent controversies, the exact field on which 
 the philosophies of the Conditioned and the 
 Unconditioned come into collision, and the 
 nature of the problem which they both ap- 
 proach from opposite sides. 
 
 What is the meaning of this problem, the 
 solution of which Plato proposes as the 
 highest aim of philosophy — '' to ascend to 
 the unconditioned, and thence to deduce the 
 universe of conditioned existence I " The 
 problem has assumed different forms at dif-
 
 4 TJie PJiilosopJiy of the Conditio7ied. 
 
 ferent times : at present we must content 
 ourselves with stating it in that in wliich 
 it "svill most naturally suggest itself to a 
 student of modem philosophy, and in which 
 it has the most direct bearing on the sub- 
 ject of the present article. 
 
 All consciousness must in the first instance 
 present itself as a relation between two con- 
 stituent parts, the person who is conscious, 
 and the thing, whatever it may be, of which 
 he is conscious. This contrast has been in- 
 dicated, directly or indirectly, by various 
 names — mind and matter ; person and thing ; 
 subject and object ; or, lastly, in the dis- 
 tinction, most convenient for philosophy, how- 
 ever uncouth in sound, between self and not 
 self— the ego and the non-ego. In order to 
 be conscious at all, I must be conscious of 
 something : consciousness thus presents itself
 
 The Philosophy of the Coiiditioned. 5 
 
 as the product of two factors, / and somie- 
 thing. The problem of the unconditioned is, 
 briefly stated, to reduce these two factors 
 to one. 
 
 For it is manifest that, so long as they 
 remain two, we have no unconditioned, but 
 a pair of conditioned existences. If the some- 
 thing of Avhich I am conscious is a separate 
 reality, having qualities and modes of action 
 of its own, and thereby determining, or con- 
 tributing to determine, the form which my 
 consciousness of it shall take, my conscious- 
 ness is thereby conditioned, or partly de- 
 pendent on something beyond itself. It is 
 no matter, in this respect, whether the in- 
 fluence is direct or indirect — whether, for 
 instance, I see a material tree, or only the 
 mental image of a tree. If the nature of 
 the thing in any degree determines the char-
 
 6 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 acter of the imaofe — if tlie visible form of a 
 tree is different from that of a house because 
 the tree itself is different from the house, my 
 consciousness is, however remotely, influenced 
 by something different from itself, the ego by 
 the non-ego. And on the other hand, if I, 
 who am conscious, am a real being, distinct 
 from the things of which I am conscious — if 
 the conscious mind has a constitution and 
 laws of its own by wliich it acts, and if the 
 mode of its consciousness is in any degree 
 determined by those laws, the non-ego is so 
 far conditioned by the ego ; the thing which 
 I see is not seen absolutely and j^9c^r se, but 
 in a form partly dependent uj)on the laws of 
 my vision. 
 
 The first step towards the reduction of 
 these two factors to one may obviously be 
 made in three different ways. Either the
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 7 
 
 eqo may be represented as a mode of the non- 
 ego, or the non-ecjo of the ecjo, or both of a 
 tertium quid, distinct from either. In other 
 words : it may be maintained, Jirst, that 
 matter is the only real existence ; mind and 
 all the phenomena of consciousness being 
 really the result solely of material laws ; the 
 brain, for example, secreting thought as the 
 liver secretes bile ; and the distinct personal 
 existence of which I am apparently conscious 
 being only the result of some such secretion. 
 This is Materialism, which has then to ad- 
 dress itself to the further problem, to reduce 
 the various phenomena of matter to some 
 one absolutely first principle on which every- 
 thing else depends. Or it may be main- 
 tained, secondly, that mind is the only real 
 existence ; the intercourse which we appar- 
 ently have with a material world being really
 
 8 The Philosophy of the Coiiditioncd. 
 
 the result solely of the laws of our mental 
 constitution. This is Idealism, which again 
 has next to attempt to reduce the various 
 phenomena to some one immaterial principle. 
 Or it may be maintained, tlmxlly, that real 
 existence is to be sought neither in mind as 
 mind nor in matter as matter ; that both 
 classes of phenomena are but equalities or 
 modes of operation of something distinct 
 from both, and on which both alike are 
 dependent. Hence arises a third form of 
 philosophy, which, for want of a better 
 name, we will call Indifferentism, as being 
 a system in which the characteristic dif- 
 ferences of mind and matter are su23j)osed to 
 disappear, being merged in something higher 
 than both. 
 
 In using the two former of these terms, we 
 are not speaking of Materialism and Ideal-
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 9 
 
 ism as they have always actually manifested 
 themselves, but only of the distinguishing 
 principle of these systems when pushed tf> 
 its extreme result. It is quite possible to 
 be a materialist or an idealist with respect to 
 the immediate phenomena of consciousness, 
 without attempting a philosophy of the Un- 
 conditioned at all. But it is also possible, 
 and in itself natural, when such a philosophy 
 is attempted, to attempt it by means of the 
 same method which has approved itself in 
 relation to subordinate inquiries ; to make 
 the relation between the human mind and 
 its objects the type and image of that be- 
 tween the universe and its first principle. 
 And such attempts have actually been made, 
 both on the side of Materialism and on that 
 of Idealism ; and probably would be made 
 oftener, did not counteracting causes fre-
 
 I o The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 quently hinder the logical development of 
 speculative principles. 
 
 In modern times, and under Christian in- 
 fluences, these several systems are almost 
 necessarily identified with inquiries concern- 
 ing the existence and nature of God, The 
 influence of Christianity has been indirectly 
 felt, even in speculations prosecuted in ap- 
 parent independence of it ; and the admission 
 of an absolute first principle of all things dis- 
 tinct from God, or the acknowledgment of a 
 God separate from or derived from the first 
 principle of all things, is an absurdity which, 
 since the prevalence of Christianity, has be- 
 come almost impossible, even to antichristian 
 systems of thought. In earlier times, indeed, 
 this union of philosophy with theology was 
 by no means so imperative. A philosophy 
 like that of Greece, which inherited its specu-
 
 The Philosophy of tJic Conditioned. 1 1 
 
 lations from a poetical theogony, would see 
 no difficulty in attributing to the god or 
 gods of its religious belief a secondary and 
 derived existence, dependent on some higher 
 and more original principle, and in separating 
 that principle itself from all immediate con- 
 nection with religion. It was possible to 
 assume, with the Ionian, a material sub- 
 stance, or, with the Eleatic, an indifferent 
 abstraction, as the first principle of things, 
 without holding that principle to be God, or, 
 as the only alternative, denying the existence 
 of a God ; and thus, as Aristotle"' has ob- 
 served, theologians endeavoured to evade the 
 consequences of their abstract principles, by 
 attributing to the chief good a later and 
 derived existence, as the poets supposed the 
 supreme God to be of younger birth than 
 
 * Mctafli., xiv. 4.
 
 1 2 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 night and chaos and sea and sky. But to 
 a Christian philosophy, or to a philosophy 
 in any way influenced by Christianity, this 
 method of evasion is no longer possible. If. 
 all conditioned existence is dependent on 
 some one first and unconditioned principle, 
 either that principle must be identified with 
 God, or our philosophical speculations must 
 fall into open and avowed atheism. 
 
 But at this point the philosophical inquiry 
 comes in contact with another line of thought, 
 suggested by a different class of the facts of 
 consciousness. As a religious and moral 
 being, man is conscious of a relation of a 
 personal character, distinct from any sug- 
 gested by the phenomena of the material 
 world, ^ — a relation to a supreme Personal 
 Being, the object of his religious worship, 
 and the source and judge of his moral obli-
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 1 3 
 
 gations and conduct. To adopt the name of 
 God in an abstract speculation merely as a 
 conventional denomination for the highest 
 link in the chain of thought, and to believe 
 in Him for the practical purposes of worship 
 and obedience, are two very different things ; 
 and for the latter, though not for the former, 
 the conception of God as a Person is indis- 
 pensable. Were man a being of pure in- 
 tellect, the problem of the Unconditioned 
 would be divested of its chief difficulty ; but 
 he is also a being of religious and moral 
 faculties, and these also have a claim to be 
 satisfied by any valid solution of the pro- 
 blem. Hence the question assumes another 
 and a more complex form. How is the 
 one absolute existence, to which pliilosophy 
 aspires, to be identified with the personal 
 God demanded by our religious feelings ?
 
 1 4 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 Shall we boldly assume that the problem 
 is already solved, and that the personal God 
 is the very Unconditioned of which we were 
 in search ? This is to beg the question, not 
 to answer it. Our conception of a personal 
 being, derived as it is from the immediate 
 consciousness of our own j)ersonality, seems, 
 on examination, to involve conditions incom- 
 patible with the desired assumption. Per- 
 sonal agency, similar to our own, seems to 
 point to something very different from an 
 absolutely first link in a chain of phenomena. 
 Our actions, if not determined, are at least 
 influenced by motives ; and the motive is a 
 prior link in the chain, and a condition of 
 the action. Our actions, moreover, take place 
 in time ; and time, as we conceive it, cannot 
 be regarded as an absolute blank, but as a 
 condition in which phenomena take place as
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 1 5 
 
 past, present, and future. Every act taking 
 place in time implies something antecedent 
 to itself; and this something, be it what it 
 may, hinders us from regarding the subse- 
 quent act as absolute and unconditioned. 
 Nay, even time itself, apart from the phe- 
 nomena which it implies, has the same char- 
 acter. If an act cannot take place except 
 in time, time is the condition of its taking 
 place. To conceive the unconditioned, as 
 the first link in a chain of conditioned con- 
 sequences, it seems necessary that we should 
 conceive something out of time, yet fol- 
 lowed by time ; standing at the beginning 
 of all duration and succession, having no 
 antecedent, but followed by a series of con- 
 sequents. 
 
 Philosophical theologians have been con- 
 scious of this difficulty, almost from the
 
 1 6 The PJiilosophy of the Coiiditioiicd. 
 
 earliest date at wliicli philosophy and Chris- 
 tian theology came in contact with each 
 other. From a number of testimonies of 
 similar import, we select one or two of the 
 most striking. Of the Divine Nature, Gre- 
 gory Nyssen says : " It is neither in place 
 nor in time, but before these and above these 
 in an unspeakable manner, contemplated it- 
 self by itself, through faith alone ; neither 
 measured by ages, nor moving along with 
 times." '" " In the changes of things," says 
 Augustine, ''you will find a past and a 
 future ; in God you will find a present where 
 past and future cannot be." t " Eternity," 
 says Aquinas, '' has no succession, but ex- 
 ists all together." I Among divines of the 
 Church of England, we quote two names 
 
 * C Eimom., i., p. 98, Ed. Gretser. 
 t In Jomm. Evang., tract, xxxvii. 10. 
 :J: Smnma, pars, i., rpi. x., art. 1.
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 1 7 
 
 only, but those of the highest : — " The dura- 
 tion of eternity," says Bishop Pearson, " is 
 completely indivisible and all at once ; so 
 that it is ever present, and excludes the 
 other dijEFerences of time, past and future.""' 
 And Barrow enumerates amono- natural 
 modes of being and operation far above our 
 reach, " God's eternity without succession," 
 coupling it with " His prescience without 
 necessitation of events."! But it is needless 
 to multiply authorities for a doctrine so fami- 
 liar to every student of theology. 
 
 Thus, then, our two lines of thought have 
 led us to conclusions which, at first sight, 
 appear to be contradictory of each other. 
 To be conceived as unconditioned, God must 
 be conceived as exempt from action in time : 
 
 * Minor Theol. Works, vol. i., p. 105. 
 
 + Sermon on the Unsearchableness of God's Judgments. 
 
 B
 
 1 8 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 to be conceived as a person, if His 2:)ersona- 
 lity resembles ours, He must be conceived as 
 acting in time. Can these two conclusions 
 be reconciled with each other ; and if not, 
 which of them is to be abandoned ? The 
 true answer to this question is, we believe, 
 to be found in a distinction which some 
 recent critics regard with very little favour, 
 — the distinction between Reason and Faith ; 
 between the power of conceiving and that of 
 believing. We cannot, in our present state 
 of knowledge, reconcile these two conclu- 
 sions ; yet we are not required to abandon 
 either. We cannot conceive the manner in 
 which the unconditioned and the personal 
 are united in the Divine Nature ; yet we 
 may believe that, in some manner unknown 
 to us, they are so united. To conceive the 
 union of two attributes in one object of
 
 TJie Philosophy of the Conditioned. 1 9 
 
 thoug"ht, I must be able to conceive them as 
 united, in some particular manner : when this 
 cannot be done, I may nevertheless believe 
 that the union is possible, though I am un- 
 able to conceive how it is possible. The 
 problem is thus represented as one of those 
 Divine mysteries, the character of which is 
 clearly and well described in the language 
 of Leibnitz : — '' II en est de meme des 
 autres mysteres, oil les esprits moderes trou- 
 veront toujours ime explication suffisante 
 pour croire, et jamais autant qii'il en faut 
 pour comprendre. II nous suffit d'un cer- 
 tain ce (/we cest (ri can) mais le comme7it 
 (ttw?) nous passe^ et ne nous est point neces- 
 
 * Theodicec, Discours de la Confonnite de, la Foi avec la Eaison, 
 § 56. Leibnitz, it will be observed, uses the expression pmir com- 
 prendre, for which, in the preceding remarks, we have substituted 
 to conceive. The change has been made intentionally, on account
 
 20 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 But this distinction involves a further con- 
 sequence. If the mysteries of the Divine 
 Nature are not apprehended by reason as 
 existing in a particular manner (in which 
 case they would be mysteries no longer), but 
 are accepted by faith as existing in some 
 manner unknown to us, it follows that we 
 do not know God as He is in His absolute 
 nature, but only as He is imperfectly repre- 
 
 of au amliiguity in the former word. Sometimes it is used, as 
 Leibnitz here uses it, to denote an apprehension of the manner in 
 which certain attributes can coexist in an object. But sometimes 
 (to say nothing of other senses) it is used to signify a complete 
 knowledge of an object in all its properties and their consequences, 
 such as it may be questioned whether we have of any object what- 
 ever. This ambiguity, which has been the source of much con- 
 fusion and much captious criticism, is well pointed out by Norris 
 in his Reason and Faith (written in reply to Toland), p. 118, Ed- 
 1697 : " WHien we say that above reason is when we do not compre- 
 hend or perceive the truth of a thing, this must not be meant of 
 not comprehending the truth in its whole latitude and extent, so 
 tliat as many tmths should be said to be above reason as we cannot
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 2 i 
 
 sentecl by those qualities in His creatures 
 which are analogous to, but not identical 
 with, His own. If, for example, we had a 
 knowledge of the Divine Personality as it is 
 in itself, we should know it as existing in 
 a certain manner compatible with uncondi- 
 tioned action ; and this knowledge of the 
 manner would at once transform our convic- 
 tion from an act of faith to a conception of 
 
 thus thoroughly comprehend and pursue througliout all their conse- 
 quences and relations to other truths (for then almost ever3^thing 
 would be above reason), but only of not comprehending the union 
 or connection of those immediate ideas of which the proposition 
 supposed to be above reason consists." Comprehension, as thus 
 explained, answers exactly to the ordinary logical use of the term 
 amccjMon, to denote the combination of two or more attributes in 
 an unity of re^iresentation. In the same sense, M. Peisse, in the 
 preface to his translation of Hamilton's Fragments, p. 98, says, — 
 " Comprendre, c'est voir un terme en rapport avec un aiitre ; c'est 
 voir comnie un ce qui est donne comme multiple." This is exactly 
 the sense in which Hamilton himself uses the word coiiccption. 
 (See Ecid's JVorks, p. 377.)
 
 2 2 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 reason. If, on the other hand, the only per- 
 sonaHty of which we have a positive know- 
 ledge is our own, and if our own personality 
 can only be conceived as conditioned in time, 
 it follows that the Divine Personality, in so 
 far as it is exempt from conditions, does not 
 resemble the only personality which we di- 
 rectly know, and is not adequately repre- 
 sented by it. This necessitates a confession, 
 which, like the distinction which gives rise 
 to it, has been vehemently condemned by 
 modern critics, but which has been concurred 
 in with singular unanimity by earlier divines 
 of various ages and countries, — the confession 
 that the knowledge which man in this life 
 can have of God is not a knowledge of the 
 Divine Nature as it is in itself, but only 
 of that nature as imperfectly represented 
 through analogous qualities in the creature.
 
 TJic Philosophy of tJic Conditioned. 23 
 
 Were it not that this doctrine has been fre- 
 quently denounced of late as an heretical 
 novelty, we should hardly have thought it 
 necessary to cite authorities in proof of its 
 antiquity and catholicity. As it is, we will 
 venture to produce a few only out of many, 
 selecting not always the most important, hut 
 those which can be best exhibited verbatim 
 in a short extract. 
 
 Chrysostom. — De Incompr. Del Natam, Horn. i. 3 : 
 " Tliaf God is everywhere, I know ; and fliat He is 
 wholly everywhere, I know ; but the how, I know not : 
 that He is without begiiming, ungenerated and eternal, 
 I know ; but the how, I knoAV not." 
 
 Basil. — Ep. ccxxxiv. : " That God is, I knoAv ; l)\it 
 what is His essence I hold to \)Q above reason. How 
 then am I saved ? By faith ; and faith is competent io 
 know that God is, not Avhat He is." 
 
 Gregory jSTazianzex.- — Orat. xxxiv. : " A theologian 
 among the Greeks [Plato] has said in his philosophy, that 
 to conceive God is difficult, to express Him is impossible.
 
 24 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 . . . J>ut I say that it is impossible to express Him, and 
 more impossible to conceive Him." [Compare Patrick, 
 Wnr/rs, vol. iii., p. 39.] 
 
 Cyril of Jerusalem. — Catech. vi. 2 : " We declare not 
 "wliat God is, but candidly confess that we know not accu- 
 rately concerning Him. For in those things which concern 
 God, it is great knowledge to confess our ignorance." 
 
 Augustine. — Enarr. in Psalm. Ixxxv. 8 : " God is 
 ineffable ; Ave more easily say what He is not than what 
 He is." Serm. cccxli. : " I call God just, because in 
 human Avords I find nothing l^etter ; for He is beyond 
 justice. . . . A¥hat then is Avorthily said of God 'i 
 Some one, perhaps, may reply and say, that Hn is Just. 
 But another, Avith better understanding, may say that 
 even this Avord is surpassed by His excellence, and tliat 
 even this is said of Him uiiAvorthily, though it be said 
 fittingly according to human capacity." 
 
 Cyril of Alexandria. — In Joann. Evavg., 1. ii., c. 5 : 
 " For those things Avliich are spoken concerning it [the 
 DiAdne Mature] are not s})oken as they are in very truth, 
 but as the tongue of man can interpret, and as man can 
 hear; for he Avho sees in an enigma also speaks in an 
 enigma." 
 
 Damascenus. — De Fide Orthod., i. -i : " That God is,
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 25 
 
 is manifest ; but what Ho is in His essence and nature is 
 utterly incomprehensible and unknoAvn." 
 
 Aquinas. — Summa, pars, i., (pi. xiii., art. 1 : " AVci 
 cannot so name God that the nauie Avhich denotes Him 
 shall express the Divine Essence as it is, in the same Avay 
 as the name num ex2)resses m its signification the essence 
 of man as it is." Ihl<l., art. 5 : " "When the name wise is 
 said of a man, it in a manner describes and comprehends 
 the thing signifieil : not so, hoAvever, Avhen it is said of 
 God ; but it leaves the tiling signified as imcomprehended 
 and exceeding the signification of the name. Whence it 
 is evident that tliis name ivise is not said in the same 
 mamier of God and of man. The same is the case with 
 other names ; Avhence no name can be predicated univo- 
 cally of God and of creatures ; yet they are not predicated 
 merely ecpiivocally. . . . We must say, then, that sucli 
 names are said of God and of creatures according to 
 analogy, that is, proportion." 
 
 Hooker. — Ecc. Pol., I., ii. 2.—" Dangerous it were for 
 the feeble brain of man to Avade far into the tloings of the 
 ]Most High ; whom althoxigh to knoAV be life, and joy to 
 make mention of His name, yet our soundest knoAvledge 
 is to know that Ave knoAV Him not as indeed He is, 
 neither can knoAv Hun."
 
 26 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 Usher. — Iknhj of Diniiufii, p. 45, Ed. 1645: " Ntdtlicr 
 is it [tlie wisdom of God] coiumimicated to any creature, 
 neither can be ; for it is unconceivabl(i, as tlie very essence 
 of God Himself is unconceivable, ami unspeakable as 
 it is." 
 
 Leigiiton. — Tlieol. Lect. XXI., Worhs, vol. iv., p. 327, 
 Ed. 1830: "Though in the schools they distinguish the 
 Divine attributes or excellences, and that by no means 
 improperly, into commimicable and incommunicable ; yet 
 "we o\ight so to guard this distinction, as always to re- 
 member that those wdiich are called communicable, wlien 
 applied to God, are not only to be understood in a manner 
 incommunicable and quite peculiar to Himself, but also, 
 that in Him they are in reality infinitely different [in tlie 
 original, aliud omnino, immensum aliud] from those 
 virtues, or rather, in a matter where the disparity of the 
 subjects is so very great, those shadows of virtues that 
 go under the same name, either in men or angels." 
 
 Pearson. — Minor Tlieol. Works, vol. i., p. 13 : "God 
 in Himself is an al)solute being, witliout any relation to 
 creatures, for He was from eternity without any creature, 
 and could, had He willed, be to eternity without crea- 
 ture. But God cannot naturally be known by us other- 
 wise than by relation to creatures, as, for example, under
 
 The Philosophy of tJic Conditioned. 2 7 
 
 the aspect of dominion, oi- of caiise, or in some other 
 relation." * 
 
 Beveridge. — On the, Tkirty-nine Articles, p. IG, Ed. 
 1846 : " But seeing the properties of God do not so much 
 denote what God is, as what we apprehend Him to be in 
 Himself ; Avhen the properties of God are predicated one 
 of another, one thing in God is not predicated of another, 
 but our apprehensions of the same thing are predicated 
 one of another." 
 
 Leslie. — Metliod with the Deists, p. 63, Ed. 174.5 : 
 " Wliat we call faculties in the soul, we call Persons in 
 the Godhead ; because there are personal actions attributed 
 to each of them. . . . And we have no other Avord 
 whereby to express it ; Ave speak it after the manner of 
 men ; nor could Ave understand if Ave heard any of those 
 mispeakalile Avords Avhich express the Divine Xature in its 
 proper essence ; therefore Ave must make alloAvances, and 
 great ones, Avhen Ave apply AVords of our natiu'e to the 
 Infinite and Eternal Being." Ihid., p. 64 : " By the 
 
 * Bishop Pearson's language is yet more explicit in anotlier 
 passage of the same A\'ork, which we give in the original Latin : — 
 " Non clantur pro hoc statu nomina quse Deum significant qnid- 
 ditative. Patet ; qnia nomina sunt conceptuum. Non autem 
 dantur in hoc statu conceptus quidditativi de Deo." — (P. 136.)
 
 28 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 word Person, Avlien applied to God (for Avant c)f a proper 
 word whereby to express it), we must mean something 
 iufinitely different from personality among men." 
 
 The system of theology represented by 
 these extracts may, as we think, be fairly 
 summed up as follows : We believe that God 
 in His own nature is absolute and uncondi- 
 tioned ; but we can only positively conceive 
 Him by means of relations and conditions sug- 
 gested by created things. We believe that His 
 own nature is simple and uniform, admitting 
 of no distinction between various attributes, 
 nor between any attribute and its subject ; 
 but we can conceive Him only by means of 
 various attributes, distinct from the subject 
 and from each other."" We believe that in 
 
 * This will l)e found most distinctly stated in the context 
 nf the extract from Beveridge, and in the citations from St. 
 Augustine given in his notes ; to which may be added the follow- 
 ing from De TrinitcUe, vi. 7 : — " Deus vero multipliciter (|uideni
 
 The Philosophy of the Co7iditioned. 29 
 
 His own nature He is exempt from all rela- 
 tions of time ; but we can conceive Him 
 only by means of ideas and terms which 
 imply temporal relations, a past, a present, 
 and a future.'" Our thought, then, must 
 not be taken as the measure and limit of 
 our belief : we think by means of relations 
 and conditions derived from created things ; 
 we believe in an Absolute Being, in whose 
 
 dicitur maguus, bonus, sapiens, beatus, verus, et quidquid alind 
 nou indigne dici videtur ; sed eadem magnitiido ejus est qu?e sapi- 
 entia, non enim mole maguus est, sed \'irtute ; et eadem bonitas 
 qua? sapientia et magnitude, et eadem Veritas quai ilia omnia : et 
 non est ibi aliud beatum esse et aliud magnum, aut sapientem, aut 
 vemm, aut bonum esse, aut omnino ipsum esse." 
 
 * Compare the remarkable words of Bishop Beveridge, I. c, 
 " Ajid therefore, though I cannot apprehend His mercy to Abel 
 in the beginning of the world, and His mercy to me now, but as 
 two distinct expressions of His mercy, yet as they are in God, they 
 are but one and the same act, — as they are in God, I say, who is 
 not measured by time, as our apprehensions of Him are, but is 
 Himself eternity ; a centre without a circumference, eternity with- 
 out time."
 
 30 TJic Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 nature these conditions and relations, in some 
 manner unknown to us, disapi)ear in a simple 
 and indivisible unity. 
 
 The most important feature of this philo- 
 sophical theology, and the one which exhibits 
 most clearly the practical difference l^etween 
 reason and faith, is that, in dealing with 
 theoretical difficulties, it does not appeal to 
 our knowledge, but to our ignorance : it 
 does not profess to offer a definite solution ; 
 it only tells us that we might find one if 
 we knew all. It does not profess, for ex- 
 ample, to solve the apparent contradiction 
 between God's foreknowledge and man's free 
 will ; it does not say, " This is the way in 
 which God foreknows, and in this way His 
 foreknowledge is reconcileable with human 
 freedom ;" it only says, " The contradiction 
 is apparent, but need not be real. Freedom
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 3 1 
 
 is incompatible with God's foreknowledge, 
 only on the supposition that God's fore- 
 knowledge is like man's : if we knew exactly 
 how the one differs from the other, we might 
 be able to see that what is incompatible witli 
 the one is not so with the other. We can- 
 not solve the difficulty, but we can believe 
 that there is a solution." 
 
 It is this open acknowledgment of our 
 ignorance of the highest things which makes 
 this system of philosophy distasteful to many 
 minds : it is the absence of any similar 
 acknowledgment which forms the attraction 
 and the seductiveness of Pantheism in one 
 way, and of Positivism in another. The 
 pantheist is not troubled with the difficulty 
 of reconciling the philosophy of the absolute 
 with belief in a personal God ; for belief in a 
 personal God is no part of his creed. Like
 
 32 The PJdlosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 the Christian, he may profess to acknowledge 
 a first principle, one, and simple, and indivi- 
 sible, and unconditioned ; but he has no need 
 to give to this principle the name of God, or 
 to invest it with such attributes as are neces- 
 sary to satisfy man's religious wants. His 
 God (so far as he acknowledges one at all) is 
 not the first principle and cause of all things, 
 but the aggregate of the whole — an universal 
 substance underlying the world of phenomena, 
 or an universal process, carried on in and by 
 the changes of things. Hence, as Aristotle 
 said of the Eleatics, that, by asserting all 
 things to be one, they annihilated causation, 
 which is the production of one thing from 
 another, so it may be said of the various 
 schools of Pantheism, that, by maintaining 
 all things to be God, they evade rather than 
 solve the great problem of philosophy, that
 
 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 33 
 
 of the relation between God and His crea- 
 tures. The positivist, on tlie other hand, 
 escapes the difficulty by an opposite course. 
 He declines all inquiry into reality and cau- 
 sation, and maintains that the only office of 
 philosophy is to observe and register the 
 invariable relations of succession and simili- 
 tude in phenomena. He does not neces- 
 sarily deny the existence of God ; but his 
 personal belief, be it vv^hat it may, is a matter 
 of utter indifference to his system. Keligion 
 and philosophy may j)erhaps go on side bv 
 side ; but their provinces are wholly distinct, 
 and therefore there is no need to attempt a 
 reconciliation between them. God, as a first 
 cause, lives like an Epicurean deity in undis- 
 turbed ease, apart from the w^orld of phe- 
 nomena, of which alone philosophy can take 
 cognisance : jDhilosophy, as the science of 
 
 c
 
 34 The Philosophy of the Coitditioned. 
 
 phenomena, contents itself with observing 
 the actual state of thing's, without troublinof 
 itself to inquire how that state of things 
 came into existence. Hence, neither Pan- 
 theism nor Positivism is troubled to explain 
 the relation of the One to the Many ; for the 
 former acknowledges only the One, and the 
 latter acknowledges only the Many. 
 
 It is between these two systems, both 
 seductive from their apparent simplicity, and 
 both simple only by mutilation, that the 
 Philosophy of the Conditioned, of which Sir 
 William Hamilton is the representative, 
 endeavours to steer a middle course, at the 
 risk of sharino- the fate of most mediators in 
 a quarrel, — being repudiated and denounced 
 by both combatants, because it declares them 
 to be both in the wronof, Agfainst Pan- 
 theism, which is the natural development of
 
 The PJdlosophy of the Conditmied. 35 
 
 the principle of IndifFerentism, it enters a 
 solemn protest, by asserting that the Abso- 
 lute must be accepted in philosophy, not as 
 a problem to be solved by reason, but as a 
 reahty to be believed in, though above rea- 
 son ; and that the pseudo-absolute, which 
 Pantheism professes to exhibit in a positive 
 conception, is shown, by the very fact of its 
 being so conceived, not to be the true Abso- 
 lute. Against Positivism, which is virtually 
 Materialism, it protests no less strongly, 
 maintaining that the philosophy which pro- 
 fesses to explain the whole of nature by the 
 aid of material laws alone, proceeds upon an 
 assumption which does not merely dispense 
 with God as a scientific hjq^othesis, but logi- 
 cally involves consequences which lead to a 
 denial of His very existence. Between both 
 extremes, it holds an intermediate position,
 
 36 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 neither aspiring, Avith Pantheism, to solve 
 the problems of the Absolute, nor neglecting 
 them, with Positivism, as altogether remote 
 from the field of philosophical inquiry ; but 
 maintaining that such problems must neces- 
 sarily arise, and must necessarily be taken 
 into account in every adequate survey of 
 human nature and human thought, and that 
 philosophy, if it cannot solve them, is bound 
 to show why they are insoluble. 
 
 Let us hear Hamilton's own words in rela- 
 tion to both the systems which he opposes. 
 Against Pantheism, and the Philosophy of 
 the Unconditioned in general, he says : — 
 
 " The Conditioned is the mean between two extremes, 
 — two inconditionates, exclusive of each other, neither of 
 wliicJi can he conceived as j^ossihle,"' but of which, on the 
 
 * It must be remembered that, to conceive a thing as possible, 
 we must conceive the manner in which it is possible, but that we 
 may believe in the fact without being able to conceive the manner.
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 37 
 
 principles of contradiction and exclnded middle, one imint 
 he admifted as necessary. On this o})inion, therefore, our 
 faculties are shown to be weak, but not deceitfid. The 
 inind is not represented as conceiving two propositions, 
 subversive of each other, as equally possible ; but only as 
 unable to understand as possible either of the two ex- 
 tremes ; one of which, hoAvever, on the groimd of their 
 mutual repugnance, it is compelled to recognise as true. 
 We are thus taught the salutary lesson, that the capacity 
 of thought is not to be constituted into the measure of 
 existence ; and are warned from recognising the domain 
 of oiu- knowledge as necessarily co-extensive with the 
 horizon of our faith. And by a wonderful revelation, we 
 are thus, in the very consciousness of our inability to con- 
 ceive aught above the relative and finite, inspired with a 
 belief in the existence of something luiconditioned beyond 
 the sphere of all comprehensible reality." — Disct(ssio7is,-p. 15. 
 
 Against Materialism, and virtually against 
 Positivism in general, he says : — 
 
 Had Hamilton distinctly expressed this, he might have avoided 
 some very groundless criticisms, with which he has been assailed 
 for maintaining a distinction between the provinces of conception 
 and belief.
 
 38 TJic PJiilosopJiy of the Conditioned. 
 
 " If in man, intelligence be a free power, — in so far as 
 its Liberty extends, intelligence must be independent of 
 necessity and matter ; and a power independent of matter 
 necessarily implies the existence of an immaterial subject 
 — that is, a spirit. If, then, the original independence of 
 intelligence on matter in the human constitution — in other 
 words, if the spuituality of mind in man be supposed a 
 datum of observation, in this datum is also given both the 
 condition and the proof of a God. For we have only to 
 infer, what analogy entitles ns to do, that intelligence 
 holds the same relative supremacy in the universe wliich 
 it holds in us, and the fii'st positive condition of a Deity 
 is established, in the establishment of the absolute priority 
 of a free creative intelligence. On the other hand, let ns 
 suppose the result of our study of man to be, that intelli- 
 gence is only a product of matter, only a reflex of organi- 
 zation, such a doctrine would not only not afford no basis 
 on which to rest any argument for a God, but, on the 
 contrary, would positively warrant the atheist in denying 
 His existence. For if, as the materialist maintains, the 
 only intelligence of which we have any experience be a 
 consequent of matter, — on this hypothesis, he not only 
 cannot assume this order to be reversed in the relations of 
 an intelligence l^eyond his observation, but, if he argue
 
 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 39 
 
 logically, he must positively conchule that, as in man, so 
 in the universe, the phenomena (if intelligence or design 
 arc only in their last analysis the products of a hrute 
 necessity. Psychological Materialism, if carried out fully 
 and faii'ly to its conclusions, thus inevitably results in 
 theological Atheism; as it has heen well expressed hy I>r. 
 Hemy More, NnJliin hi micwcosmo spiritiis, niillns in 
 macwcosmo Dens. I do not, of course, mean to assert 
 that all materialists deny or actually disbelieve a God. 
 For, in very many cases, this would be at once an un- 
 merited comjDliment to their reasoning, and an unmerited 
 reproach to their faith." — Lectures, voL i., p. 31.''' 
 
 * This pai-t of Hamilton's teaching is altogether repudiated by 
 a recent writer, wlio, strangely enough, professes to be his disciple, 
 while rejecting all that is really characteristic of his philosophy. 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his work on First Principles, endeavoui-s 
 to press Sir W. Hamilton into the service of Pantheism and Posi- 
 ti\asm together, by adopting the negative portion only of his 
 philosophy — in which, in common with many other writers, he 
 declares the absolute to be inconceivable by the mere intellect,- — 
 and rejecting the positive portions, in which he most emphatically 
 maintains that the belief in a personal God is imperatively de- 
 manded by the facts of our moral and emotional consciousness. 
 Mr. Spencer regards religion as nothing more than a consciousness 
 of natural facts as being in their ultimate genesis unaccountable — a 
 theory which is simply a combination of the positivist doctrine.
 
 40 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 In the few places in which Hamilton 
 speaks directly as a theologian, his language 
 is in agreement with the general voice of 
 
 that we know only the relations of phenomena, with the pantheist 
 assumption of the name of God to denote the substance or power 
 which lies beyond phenomena, l&o theory can be more opposed to 
 the philosophy of the conditioned than this. Sir W. Hamilton's 
 fundamental princijile is, that consciousness must be accepted 
 entire, and that the moral and religious feelings, which are the 
 primary source of our belief in a personal God, are in no way 
 invalidated by the merely negative inferences which have deluded 
 men into the assumption of an impersonal absolute ; the latter not 
 lieing legitimate deductions from consciousness rightly interpreted 
 Mr. Spencer, on the other hand, takes these negaiive inferences as 
 the only basis of religion, and abandons Hamilton's great principle 
 of the distinction between knowledge and belief, by quietly drop- 
 ping out of his system the facts of consciousness which make such 
 a distinction necessary. His whole sj'stem is, in fact, a pertinent 
 illustration of Hamilton's remark, that " the phenomena of matter" 
 [and of mind, he might add, treated by materialistic methods], 
 " taken by themselves (you will observe the qualification, taken 
 by themselves), so far from Avarranting any inference to the exist- 
 ence of a God, would, on the contrary, ground even an argument 
 to his negation." Mr. Spencer, like Mr. Mill, denies the freedom 
 of the will ; and this, according to Hamilton, leads by logical conse- 
 quence to Atheism.
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 4 1 
 
 Catholic theology down to the end of the 
 seventeenth century, some specimens of 
 which have been given on a previous page. 
 Thus he says (Discussio7is, p. 1 5) : " True, 
 therefore, are the declarations of a pious 
 philosophy, — 'A God understood would be 
 no God at all ; ' ' To think that God is, as 
 we can think Him to be, is blasphemy.' The 
 Divinity, in a certain sense, is revealed ; in 
 a certain sense is concealed : He is at once 
 known and unknown. But the last and 
 highest consecration of all true religion must 
 be an altar 'Ayvwa-ro) Oec}. — ' To the unhioivn 
 and unhioivable God."' A little later (p. 
 20) he says : '' We should not recoil to the 
 opj^osite extreme ; and though man be not 
 identical with the Deity, still is he ^created 
 in the image of God.' It is, indeed, only 
 through an analogy of the human with the
 
 42 The PJiilosophy of tJic Conditioned. 
 
 Divine nature, that we are percipient and 
 reci23ient of Divinity." In the first of these 
 passages we have an echo of the language 
 of Basil, the two Cyrils, and John Damas- 
 cene, and of our own Hooker and Usher ; 
 w^hile in the second we find the counter 
 truth, intimated by Augustine and other 
 Fathers/" and clearly stated by Aquinas, 
 and which in the last century was elabor- 
 ately expounded in the Divme Analogy 
 of Bishop Browne, — namely, that though 
 
 * As e.g., by Tertiillian [Adv. Marc, 1. ii., c. 16): " Et haec 
 ergo imago censenda est Dei in liomine, quod eosdein motus et 
 sensus liabeat h^imaiius animi;s quos et Deus, licet non tales quales 
 Deus : pro substantia enim, et status eorum et exitus distant." 
 And by Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. xxxvii. : Qvo/xdaafiev yap ws tj/uv 
 icpLKTOv €K tGjv TjiiiTipuiv TO, Tou Oeou. Aud by Hilary, De Trin., 
 i. 19: " Comparatio enim terrenorum ad Deum nulla est; sed 
 infirmitas nostriB intelligentiffi cogit species quasdam ex inferi- 
 oribus, tanquam superiorum indices quserere ; ut rerum familiarium 
 consuetudine admovente, ex sensus nostri conscientia ad insoliti 
 sensus opinionem educeremur. "
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 43 
 
 we know not God in His own nature, yet 
 are we not wholly ignorant of Him, but 
 may attain to an imperfect knowledge of 
 Him through the analogy between human 
 things and Divine. 
 
 As regards theological results, therefore, 
 there is nothing novel or peculiar in Hamil- 
 ton's teachino' • nor was he one who would 
 have regarded novelty in theology as a re- 
 commendation. The peculiarity of his sys- 
 tem, by which his reputation as a philosopher 
 must ultimately stand or fall, is the manner 
 in which he endeavoured to connect these 
 theological conclusions with psychological 
 principles ; and thus to vindicate on philo- 
 sophical grounds the position which Catholic 
 divines had been compelled to take in the 
 interests of dogmatic truth. That the abso- 
 lute nature of God, as a supertemporal and
 
 44 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 yet personal Being, must be believed in as 
 a fact, though inaccessible to reason as re- 
 gards the manner of its possibility, is a 
 position admitted, almost without exception, 
 by divines who acknowledge the mystery 
 of a personal Absolute — still more by those 
 who acknowledge the yet deeper mystery 
 of a Trinity in Unity. '^ We believe and 
 know," says Bishop Sanderson of the mys- 
 teries of the Christian faith, " and that with 
 fulness of assurance, that all these things 
 are so as they are revealed in the Holy 
 Scriptures, because the mouth of God, who 
 is Truth itself, and cannot lie, hath spoken 
 them ; and our own reason upon this ground 
 teacheth us to submit ourselves and it to 
 tliQ obedience of faith, for the to on, that so 
 it is. But then, for the to ttco?, Nicodemus 
 his question, How can these things he f it is
 
 The PhilosopJiy of the Conditioned. 45 
 
 no more possible for our weak understand- 
 ings to comprehend that, than it is for the 
 eyes of bats or owls to look steadfastly upon 
 the body of the sun, when he shineth forth 
 in his greatest strength.'"''' This distinction 
 Hamilton endeavoured to extend from the 
 domain of Christian theology to that of philo- 
 sophical sjDeculation in general ; to show that 
 the unconditioned, as it is suggested in philo- 
 sophy, no less than as it connects itself with 
 revealed religion, is an object of belief, not 
 of positive conception ; and, consequently, 
 that men cannot escape from mystery by 
 rejecting revelation. " Above all," he says, 
 " I am confirmed in my belief by the har- 
 mony between the doctrines of this philo- 
 sophy, and those of revealed truth. . . . 
 For this philosophy is professedly a scientific 
 
 * Works, voL i., p. 233.
 
 46 The Philosophy of iJic Conditioned. 
 
 demonstration of the impossibility of that 
 ' wisdom in high matters' which the Apostle 
 prohibits us even to attempt ; and it pro- 
 poses, from the limitation of the human 
 powers, from our impotence to comprehend 
 what, however, we must admit, to show 
 articulately Avliy the ' secret things of God ' 
 cannot but be to man ' j^ast finding out.'"'^ 
 Faith in the inconceivable must thus become 
 the ultimate refuge, even of the pantheist 
 and the atheist, no less than of the Chris- 
 tian ; the difference being, that wliile the 
 last takes his stand on a faith which is in 
 agreement alike with the authority of Scrip- 
 ture and the needs of human nature, the 
 two former are driven to one which is equally 
 opposed to both, as well as to the pretensions 
 of their own philosophy. 
 
 * Discussions, p. 625.
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 47 
 
 Deny the Trinity ; deny the Personality 
 
 of God : there yet remains tliat which no 
 man can deny as the hiw of his own con- 
 sciousness — Tinne. Conditioned existence is 
 existence in time : to attain to a philosophy 
 of the unconditioned, we must rise to the 
 conception of existence out of time. The 
 attempt may be made in two ways, and in 
 two only. Either we may endeavour to 
 conceive an absolutely first moment of time, 
 beyond which is an existence having no dura- 
 tion and no succession ; or we may endeavour 
 to conceive time as an unlimited duration, 
 containing an infinite series of successive 
 antecedents and consequents, each condi- 
 tioned in itself, but forming altogether an 
 unconditioned whole. In other words, we 
 may endeavour, with the Eleatics, to con- 
 ceive pure existence apart and distinct from
 
 48 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 all phenomenal change ; or we may endea- 
 vour, with Heraclitus, to conceive the uni- 
 verse as a system of incessant changes, immu- 
 table only in the law of its own mutability ; 
 for these two systems may be regarded as 
 the type of all subsequent attempts. Both, 
 however, alike aim at an object which is 
 beyond positive conception, and which can 
 be accepted only as something to be believed 
 in spite of its inconceivability. To conceive 
 an existence beyond the first moment of 
 time, and to connect that existence as cause 
 with the subsequent temporal succession of 
 effects, we must conceive time itself as non- 
 existent and then commencing to exist. But 
 when we make the effort to conceive time 
 as non-existent, we find it impossible to do 
 so. Time, as the universal condition of 
 human consciousness, clings round the very
 
 TJic Philosophy of I he Conditioned. 49 
 
 conception which strives to destroy it, chngs 
 round the language in which we speak of an 
 existence before time. Nor are we more 
 successful when w^e attempt to conceive an 
 infinite regress of time, and an infinite series 
 of dependent existences in time. To say 
 nothing of the direct contradiction involved 
 in the notion of an unconditioned tvhole, — a 
 something completed, — composed of infinite 
 parts — of parts never completed, — even if we 
 abandon the Whole, and with it the Uncon- 
 ditioned, and attempt merely to conceive an 
 infinite succession of conditioned existences 
 — conditioned, absurdly enough, by nothing 
 beyond themselves, — we find, that in order 
 to do so, we must add moment to moment 
 for ever — a process which would require an 
 eternity for its accomplishment.""' Moreover, 
 
 * See Discussions, p. 29. Of course by this is not meant that 
 D
 
 50 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 the chain of dependent existences in this 
 infinite succession is not, like a mathematical 
 series, composed of abstract and homogeneous 
 
 110 duration can be conceived except in a duration e([ually long — 
 that a thousand years, e.g., can only be conceived in a thousand 
 years. A thousand years may be conceived as one unit : infinity 
 cannot ; for an unit is something complete, and therefore limited. 
 What is meant is, that any period of time, however long, is con- 
 ceived as capable of further increase, and therefore as not infinite. 
 An infinite duration can have no time before or after it ; and thus 
 cannot resemble any portion of finite time, however great. AVlien 
 we dream of conceiving an infinite regress of time, says Sir W. 
 Hamilton, ' ' we only deceive ourselves by substituting tlie in- 
 definite for the infinite, than which no two notions can be more 
 opposed." This caution has not been attended to by some later 
 critics. Thus, Dr. Whewell {Tliilosoinliy of Discovery, p. 324) says : 
 " The definition of an infinite number is not tliat it contains all 
 possible unities ; but this — that the progress of numeration, being 
 begun according to a certain law, goes on without limit." This is 
 precisely Descartes' definition, not of the infinite, but of the in- 
 definite. Frincipia, i. 26 : " Nos autem ilia omnia, in quibus sub 
 aliqua consideratione nullum finem poterimus invenire, non (juidem 
 aifirmabimus esse iufinita, sed ut indefinita spectabimus. " An 
 indefinite time is that which is capable of perpetual addition : an 
 infinite time is one so great as to admit of no addition. Surely 
 " no two notions can be more opposed."
 
 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioited. 51 
 
 units ; it is made up of divers phenomena, 
 of a regressive line of causes, each distinct 
 from the other. Wherever, therefore, I stop 
 in my addition, I do not positively conceive 
 the temis which lie beyond. I apprehend 
 them only as a series of unknown soinethings, 
 of which I may believe that they are, but am 
 unable to say ivliat they are. 
 
 The cardinal point, then, of Sir W. Hamil- 
 ton's philosophy, expressly announced as such 
 by himself, is the absolute necessity, under 
 any system of philosophy whatever, of ac- 
 knowledging the existence of a sphere of 
 belief beyond the limits of the sphere of 
 thought. '^ The main scope of my specula- 
 tion,""^' he says, " is to show articulately that 
 we must helieve, as actual, much that we are 
 unable (positively) to conceive as even pos- 
 
 * Letter to Mr. Calderwood. See Lectures, vol. ii., p. 534.
 
 52 The PhilosopJiy of the Coiiditioned. 
 
 sible." It is, of course, beyond the range 
 of such a speculation, by itself, to enter on 
 an examination of the positive evidences in 
 support of one form of belief rather than 
 another. So far as it aims only at exhibiting 
 an universal law of the human mind, it is of 
 course compatible with all special forms of 
 belief which do not contradict that law ; and 
 none, whatever their pretensions, can really 
 contradict it. Hence the service which such 
 a philosophy can render to the CM'istian reli- 
 gion must necessarily, from the nature of the 
 case, be of an indirect and negative character. 
 It prepares the way for a fair examination 
 of the proper evidences of Christianity, by 
 showing that there is no ground for any a 
 priori prejudice against revelation, as appeal- 
 ing, for the acceptance of its highest truths, 
 to faith rather than to reason : for that this
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 53 
 
 appeal is common to all religions and to all 
 philosophies, and cannot therefore be urged 
 against one more than another. So far as 
 certain difficulties are inherent in the consti- 
 tution of the human mind itself, they must 
 necessarily occupy the same position witli 
 respect to all religions alike. To exhibit the 
 nature of these difficulties is a service to true 
 religion ; but it is the service of the pioneer, 
 not of the builder ; it does not prove the 
 religion to be true ; it only clears the ground 
 for the production of the special evidences. 
 
 Where those evidences are to be found, 
 Sir W. Hamilton has not failed to tell us. 
 If mere intellectual speculations on the 
 nature and origin of the material universe 
 form a common ground in which the theist, 
 the pantheist, and even the atheist, may 
 alike expatiate, the moral and religious feel-
 
 54 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 ings of man — those facts of consciousness 
 which have their direct source in the sense of 
 personahty and free will — plead with over- 
 whelming evidence in behalf of a personal 
 Godj and of man's relation to Him, as a 
 person to a person. We have seen, in a pre- 
 vious quotation, Hamilton's emphatic decla- 
 ration that '■'■ psychological materialism, if 
 carried out fully and fairly to its conclusions, 
 inevitably results in theological atheism." 
 In the same spirit he tells us that " it is only 
 as man is a free intelligence, a moral power, 
 that he is created after the image of God ;" '^ 
 that " with the proof of the moral nature of 
 man, stands or falls the proof of the existence 
 of a Deity;" that "the possibility of morahty 
 depends on the possibility of liberty ;" that 
 "if man be not a free agent, he is not the 
 
 * Lectures, vol. i. , p. 30.
 
 TJie PJiilosophy of tJic Coiiditioned. 55 
 
 author of his actions, and has therefore no 
 responsibihty, no moral personality at all ;"'"' 
 and, finally, '' that he who disbelieves the 
 moral agency of man, must, in consistency 
 with that opinion, disbelieve Christianity." t 
 We have thus, in the positive and negative 
 sides of this philosophy, both a reasonable 
 ground of belief and a warning against pre- 
 sumption. By our immediate consciousness 
 of a moral and personal nature, we are led to 
 the belief in a moral and personal God : by 
 our ignorance of the unconditioned, w^e are 
 led to the further belief, that behind that 
 moral and personal manifestation of God 
 there lies concealed a mystery — the mystery 
 of the Absolute and the Infinite ; that our 
 intellectual and moral qualities, though indi- 
 
 * Lectures, vol. i., p. 33. 
 t Ihid., p. 42.
 
 56 The Philosophy of the Condilioncd. 
 
 eating the nearest approach to the Divine 
 Perfections which we are capable of conceiv- 
 ing, yet indicate them as analogous, not as 
 identical ; that we may naturally expect to 
 find points where this analogy will fail us, 
 where the function of the Infinite Moral 
 Governor will be distinct from that of the 
 finite moral servant ; and where, conse- 
 quently, we shall be liable to error in judging 
 by human rules of the ways of God, whether 
 manifested in nature or in revelation. Such 
 is the true lesson to be learnt from a philo- 
 sophy which tells us of a God who is " in a 
 certain sense revealed, in a certain sense con- 
 cealed — at once known and unknown." 
 
 It is not surprising that this philosophy, 
 when compared with that of a critic like Mr. 
 Mill, should stand out in clear and sharp 
 antagonism. Mr. Mill is one of the most
 
 The Philosophy of ihe Conditioned. 57 
 
 distinguished representatives of that school 
 of Materialism which Sir W. Hamilton de- 
 nounces as virtual Atheism. We do not 
 mean that he consciously adopts the grosser 
 tenets of the materialists. We are not aware 
 that he has ever positively denied the exist- 
 ence of a soul distinct from the body, or 
 maintained that the brain secretes thought 
 as the liver secretes bile. But he is the 
 advocate of a philosophical method which 
 makes the belief in the existence of an imma- 
 terial principle superfluous and incongruous ; 
 he not only acknowledges no such distinction 
 between the phenomena of mind and those of 
 matter as to rec[uire the hypothesis of a free 
 intelligence to account for it ; he not only 
 reo-ards the ascertained laws of coexistence 
 and succession in material phenomena as the 
 type and rule according to which all pheno-
 
 58 The Philosophy of tJic Conditioned. 
 
 mena whatever — those of internal conscious- 
 ness no less than of external observation — are 
 to be tested ; but he even expressly denies 
 the existence of that free will which Sir W. 
 Hamilton regards as the indispensable condi- 
 tion of all morality and all religion."' Thus, 
 
 * That this is the real battle-ground between the two philoso- 
 phers is virtually admitted by Mr. Mill himself at the end of his 
 criticism. He says : — " The whole philosophy of Sir W. Hamilton 
 seems to have had its character determined by the requirements of 
 the doctrine of Free-will ; and to that doctrine he clung, because 
 he had persuaded himself that it afibrded the only premises from 
 which human reason could deduce the doctrines of natural religion. 
 I believe that in this persuasion he was thoroughly his own dupe, 
 and that his speculations liave weakened the philosoiihical founda- 
 tion of religion fully as much as they have confinned it." — P. 549. 
 Mr. ^Mill's whole philosophy, on the other hand, is determined by 
 the requirements of the doctrine of Necessity ; and to that doctrine 
 he intrepidly adheres, in utter defiance of consciousness, and some- 
 times of his own consistency. Which of the two philosophers is 
 really "his own dupe," Mr. Mill in believing that morality and 
 religion can exist without free will — that a necessary agent can be 
 responsible for his acts — or Sir W. Hamilton in maintaining the 
 contrary, is a question which the former has by no means satis- 
 factorily settled in his own favour.
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 59 
 
 instead of recognising in the facts of intelli- 
 gence " an order of existence diametrically 
 in contrast to that displayed to us in the 
 facts of the material universe," "" he regards 
 both classes of facts as of the same kind, and 
 explicable by the same laws ; he abolishes 
 the primary contrast of consciousness between 
 the ego and the non-ego — the j)erson and the 
 thing ; he reduces man to a thing, instead of 
 a person, — to one among the many pheno- 
 mena of the universe, determined by the 
 same laws of invariable antecedence and con- 
 sequence, included under the same fonTiula3 
 of empirical generalization. He thus makes 
 man the slave, and not the master of nature ; 
 passively carried along in the current of 
 successive phenomena ; unable, by any act 
 of free will, to arrest a single wave in its 
 
 * Hamilton, Lectures, vol. i., p. 29.
 
 6o The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 course, or to divert it from its ordained 
 direction. 
 
 This diametrical antagonism between the 
 two philosophers is not limited to their first 
 principles, but extends, as might naturally be 
 expected, to every subordinate science of 
 which the immediate object is mental, and 
 not material. Logic, instead of being, as 
 Sir W. Hamilton regards it, an a priori 
 science of the necessary laws of thought, is 
 wath Mr. Mill a science of observation, 
 investigating those operations of the un- 
 derstanding which are subservient to the 
 estimation of evidence.'"' The axioms of 
 Mathematics, which the former philosopher 
 regards, with Kant, as necessary thoughts, 
 based on the a prioid intuitions of sj)ace and 
 time, the latter t declares to be " experimental 
 
 * Mill's Logic. Introduction, § 7. + Ihid., book ii. 5, § 4.
 
 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 1 
 
 truths ; generalizations from observation." 
 Psychology, which with Hamilton is espe- 
 cially the philosophy of man as a free and 
 personal agent, is with Mill the science of 
 " the uniformities of succession ; the laws, 
 whether ultimate or derivative, according to 
 which one mental state succeeds another.'"'' 
 And finally, in the place of Ethics, as the 
 science of the a priori laws of man's moral 
 obligations, we are presented, in Mr. Mill's 
 system, with Ethology, the "science which 
 determines the kind of character produced, 
 in conformity to the general laws of mind, 
 by any set of circumstances, physical and 
 moral." t 
 
 The contrast betw^een the two philosophers 
 being thus thoroughgoing, it was natural to 
 expect beforehand that an Examination of 
 
 * Mill's Logic, book vi. 4, § 3. t Ihld., book vi. 5, § 4.
 
 62 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 Sir William Ilamiltoris Philosopluj, by Mr, 
 Mill, would contain a sharp and vigorous 
 assault on the principal doctrines of that 
 philosophy. And this expectation has been 
 amply fulfilled. But there was also reason 
 to expect, from the ability and critical power 
 displayed in Mr. Mill's previous writings, 
 that his assault, whether successful or not in 
 overthrowing his enemy, would at least be 
 guided by a clear knowledge of that enemy's 
 position and purposes ; that his dissent would 
 be accompanied by an intelligent apprehen- 
 sion, and an accurate statement, of the doc- 
 trines dissented from. In this expectation, 
 we regret to say, w^e have been disappointed. 
 Not only is Mr. Mill's attack on Hamilton's 
 philosophy, with the exception of some minor 
 details, unsuccessful ; but we are compelled 
 to add, that with regard to the three funda-
 
 The PhilosopJiy of the Conditioned. O3 
 
 mental doctrines of that philosophy — the 
 Relativity of Knowledge, the Incognisability 
 of the Absolute and Infinite, and the dis- 
 tinction between Reason and Faith — Mr. 
 Mill has, throughout his criticism, altogether 
 missed the meaning of the theories he is 
 attempting to assail, 
 
 Tliis is a serious charo-e to brino- ao-ainst a 
 writer of such eminence as Mr. Mill, and one 
 which should not be advanced without ample 
 proof. First, then, of the Relativity of 
 Knowledge. 
 
 The assertion that all our knowledsfe is 
 relative, — in other words, that we know 
 things only under such conditions as the 
 laws of our cognitive faculties impose upon 
 us, — is a statement which looks at first sigfht 
 like a truism, but which really contains an 
 answer j:o a very important question,— Have
 
 64 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 we reason to believe that the laws of our 
 cognitive faculties impose any conditions at 
 all ? — that the mind in any way reacts on 
 the objects affecting it, so as to produce a 
 result different from that which would be 
 produced were it merely a passive recipient ? 
 " The mind of man," says Bacon, ^' is far 
 from the nature of a clear and equal glass, 
 wherein the beams of things shall reflect 
 according to their true incidence ; nay, it is 
 rather like an enchanted glass, full of super- 
 stition and imposture, if it be not delivered 
 and reduced." Can what Bacon says of the 
 fallacies of the mind be also said of its pro- 
 per cognitions ? Does the mind, by its own 
 action, in any way distort the appearance of 
 the things presented to it ; and if so, how far 
 does the distortion extend, and in what man- 
 ner is it to be rectified ? To trace the course
 
 The PJiilosophy of the Co)iditioncd. O5 
 
 of this inquiry, from the day when Plato 
 compared the objects perceived by the senses 
 to the shadows thrown by fire on the wall of 
 a cave, to the day when Kant declared that 
 we know only phenomena, not things in 
 themselves, would be to write the history of 
 philosophy. We can only at present call 
 attention to one movement in that history, 
 which was, in effect, a revolution in philo- 
 sophy. The older philosophers in general 
 distinofuished between the senses and the 
 intellect, regarding the former as deceptive 
 and concerned with phenomena alone, the 
 latter as trustworthy and conversant with 
 the realities of things. Hence arose the 
 distinction between the sensible and the 
 intelligible world — between things as per- 
 ceived by sense and things as apprehended 
 by intellect — between Phenomenology and
 
 66 The Pldlosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 Ontology. Kant rejected this distinction, 
 holding that the intellect, as well as the 
 sense, imposes its own forms on the things 
 presented to it, and is therefore cognisant only 
 of phenomena, not of things in themselves. 
 The logical result of this position would 
 be the abolition of ontology as a science 
 of things in themselves, and, ci fortiori, of 
 that highest branch of ontology which aims 
 at a knowledge of the Absolute'"' Kar ejo^'/i', 
 of the unconditioned first principle of all 
 things. If the mind, in every act of thought, 
 imposes its own forms on its objects, to think 
 
 * The term absolute, in the sense of free from relafum, may be 
 used in two applications ; — 1st, To denote the nature of a tiling 
 as it is in itself, as distinguished from its appearance to lis. Here 
 it is used only in a subordinate sense, as meaning out of relation to 
 human knowledge. 2ndly, To denote the nature of a thing as 
 independent of all other things, as -having no relation to any other 
 thing as the condition of its existence. Here it is used in its 
 highest sense, as meaning out of relation to anything else.
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 67 
 
 is to condition, and the unconditioned is the 
 unthinkable. Such was the logical result of 
 Kant's princi})les, but not the actual result. 
 For Kant, by distinguishing between the 
 Understanding and the Reason, and giving 
 to the latter an indirect yet positive cognition 
 of the Unconditioned as a regulative prin- 
 ciple of thought, prepared the way for the 
 systems of Schelling and Hegel, in which 
 this indirect cognition is converted into a 
 direct one, by investing the reason, thus 
 distinguished as the special faculty of the 
 unconditioned, with a power of intuition 
 emancipated from the conditions of space and 
 time, and even of subject and object, or a 
 power of thought emancipated from the laws 
 of identity and contradiction. 
 
 The theory of Hamilton is a modification 
 of that of Kant, intended to obviate these
 
 68 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 consequences, and to relieve the Kantian 
 doctrine itself from the inconsistency which 
 gave rise to them. -So long as the reason is 
 regarded as a separate faculty from the 
 understanding, and things in themselves as 
 ideas of the reason, so long the apparent 
 contradictions, which encumber the attempt 
 to conceive the unconditioned, must be re- 
 garded as inherent in the constitution of the 
 reason itself, and as the result of its legiti- 
 mate exercise on its proper objects. This 
 sceptical conclusion Hamilton endeavoured 
 to avoid by rejecting the distinction between 
 the understanding and the reason as separate 
 faculties, regarding the one as the legitimate 
 and positive, the other as the illegitimate 
 and neofative, exercise of one and the same 
 faculty. He thus announces, in opposition 
 to Kant, the fundamental doctrine of the
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. O9 
 
 Conditioned, as " the distinction between 
 intelligence witliin its legitimate sphere of 
 operation, impeccable, and intelligence beyond 
 that sphere, affording (by abuse) the occasions 
 of error."'" Hamilton, like Kant, maintained 
 that all our cognitions are compounded of 
 two elements, one contributed by the object 
 known, and the other by the mind knowing. 
 But the very conception of a relation implies 
 the existence of thmgs to be related ; and 
 the knowledge of an object, as in relation to 
 our mmd, necessarily implies its existence 
 out of that relation. But as so existinof, it 
 is unknown : we believe that it is ; we know 
 not what it is. How far it resembles, or how 
 far it does not resemble, the object appre- 
 hended by us, we cannot say, for we have 
 no means of comparing the two together. 
 
 * Discussions, p. 633.
 
 70 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 Instead, therefore, of saying with Kant, that 
 reason is subject to an inevitable dekision, by 
 which it mistakes the regulative principles of 
 its own thoughts for the representations of 
 real things, Hamilton would say that the 
 reason, while compelled to believe in the ex- 
 istence of these real things, is not legitimately 
 entitled to make any positive representation 
 of them as of such or such a nature ; and 
 that the contradictions into which it falls 
 when attempting to do so are due to an 
 illegitimate attempt to transcend the proper 
 boundaries of positive thought. 
 
 This theory does not, in itself, contain any 
 statement of the mode in wiiich we perceive 
 the material world, whether directly by pre- 
 sentation, or indirectly by representative 
 images ; and perhaps it might, without any 
 great violence, be adapted to more than one
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 7 1 
 
 of the current hypotheses on this point. But 
 that to which it most easily adjusts itself is 
 that maintained by Hamilton himself under 
 the name of Natural Realism. To speak of 
 perception as a relation between mind and 
 matter, naturally implies the presence of 
 both correlatives ; though each may be modi- 
 fied by its contact with the other. The acid 
 may act on the alkali, and the alkali on the 
 acid, in forming the neutral salt ; but each 
 of the ingredients is as truly present as the 
 other, though each enters into the compound 
 in a modified form. And this is equally the 
 case in perception, even if we suppose various 
 media to intervene between the ultimate 
 object and the j^erceiving mind, — such, e.g., 
 as the rays of light and the sensitive or- 
 ganism in vision, — so long as these media 
 are material,, like the ultimate object itself
 
 72 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 Whether the object, properly so called, in 
 vision, be the rays of light in contact with 
 the organ, or the body emitting or reflecting 
 those rays, is indiflerent to the jDresent ques- 
 tion, so long as a material object of some 
 kind or other is supposed to be perceived, 
 and not merely an inmaterial representation 
 of such an object. To speak of our percep- 
 tions as mere modifications of mind produced 
 by an unknown cause, would be like main- 
 taining that the acid is modified by the 
 influence of the alkali Avithout entering into 
 combination with it. Such a view might 
 perhaps be tolerated, in connection with the 
 theory of relativity, by an indulgent interpre- 
 tation of language, but it is certainly not 
 that which the language of the theory most 
 naturally suggests. 
 
 All this Mr. Mill entirely misapprehends.
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 7 3 
 
 He quotes a passage from Hamilton's Lec- 
 tures, in which the above theory of Relativity 
 is clearly stated as the mean between the 
 extremes of Idealism and Materialism, and 
 then proceeds to comment as follows : — 
 
 " The proposition, that our cognitions of objects are 
 only in part dependent on the objects themselves, and in 
 part on elements superadded by our organs or our minds, 
 is not identical, nor prima facie absurd. It cannot, how- 
 ever, warrant the assertion that all our knoAvledge, but 
 only that the part so added, is relative. If oiu' author 
 had gone as far as Kant, and had said that all "which 
 constitutes knowledge is put in by the mind itself, he 
 would have really held, in one of its forms, the doctrine 
 of the relativity of our laioAvledge. But what he does 
 say, far from implying that the whole of our knowledge is 
 relative, distinctly imports that all of it Avliich is real and 
 authentic is the reverse. If any part of what we fancy 
 that we perceive in the objects themselves, originates in 
 the perceivmg organs or in the cognising mind, thus much 
 is purely relative ; but since, by supposition, it does not 
 all so originate, the part that does not is as much absolute
 
 74 The Philosophy of the Conditio7ied. 
 
 as if it were not liable to be mixed up Avitli these deliisive 
 subjective impressions." — (P. 30.) 
 
 Mr. Mill, tlierefore, supposes that wliolly 
 relative must mean wliolhj mental ; in other 
 words, that to say that a thing is wholly due 
 to a relation between mind and matter is 
 equivalent to saying that it is wholly due to 
 mind alone. On the contrary, we maintain 
 that Sir W. Hamilton's lanofuaa-e is far more 
 accurate than Mr. Mill's, and that the above 
 theory can with perfect correctness be de- 
 scribed as one of total relativity ; and this 
 from two points of view. First, as opposed 
 to the theory of partial relativity generally 
 held by the pre-Kantian philosophers, ac- 
 cording to which our sensitive cognitions 
 are relative, our intellectual ones absolute. 
 Secondly, as asserting that the object of 
 perception, though composed of elements
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 7 5 
 
 partly material, partly mental, yet exhibits 
 both alike in a form modified by their rela- 
 tion to each other. The composition is not a 
 mere mechanical juxtaposition, in which each 
 part, though acting on the other, retains its 
 own characteristics unchanged. It may be 
 rather likened to a chemical fusion, in whicli 
 both elements are present, but each of them 
 is affected by the composition. The material 
 part, therefore, is not " as much absolute as 
 if it were not liable to be mixed up with 
 subjective impressions." 
 
 But we must hear the continuation of Mr. 
 Mill's criticism : — 
 
 " The admixture of the relative element not only does 
 not take aAvay the absolute character of the remainder, hut 
 does not even (if our author is right) prevent vis from 
 recognising it. The confusion, according to him, is not 
 inextricable. It is for us to ' analyse and distinguish
 
 76 The PhilosopJiy of the Conditioned. 
 
 what elemeuls ' in an ' act of knowledge ' are contributed 
 by the object, and what by our organs, or by the uiind. 
 We may neglect to do this, and as far as the mind's share 
 is concerned, we can only do it by the help of pliilosophy ; 
 but it is a task to which, in his opinion, pliilosophy is 
 equal. By thus stripping off such of the elements in our 
 apparent cognitions of tilings as are but cognitions of 
 sometliiiig in us, and consequently relative, we may 
 succeed in luicovering the pure nucleus, the direct intui- 
 tions of tilings in themselves ; as we correct the observed 
 positions of the heavenly bodies by allowing for the error 
 due to the refi'actuig influence of the atmospheric medium, 
 an influence which does not alter the facts, but only our 
 perception of them." 
 
 Surely Mr. Mill here demands rQuch more 
 of philosophy than Sii" W. Hamilton deems 
 it capable of accomplishing. Why may not 
 Hamilton, like Kant, distinguish between the 
 permanent and necessary, and the variable 
 and contingent — in other words, between the 
 subjective and the objective elements of
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 7 7 
 
 consciousness, without therefore obtaining a 
 " direct intuition of thinofs in themselves ? " 
 Why may he not distinguish between space 
 and time as the forms of our sensitive cogni- 
 tions, and the things perceived in space and 
 time, which constitute the matter of the 
 same cognitions, without thereby having an 
 intuition, on the one hand, of pure space and 
 time with nothino- m them, or on the other, 
 of things in themselves out of space and time ? 
 If certain elements are always present in 
 perception, while certain others change with 
 eveiy act, I may surely infer that the one is 
 due to the permanent subject, the other to 
 the variable object, without thereby knowing 
 what each would be if it could be discerned 
 apart from the other. " A direct intuition 
 of things in themselves," according to Kant 
 and Hamilton, is an intuition of things out
 
 78 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 of space and time. Does Mr. Mill suppose 
 that any natural Realist professes to have 
 such an intuition ? 
 
 The same error of supposing that a doc- 
 trine of relativity is necessarily a doctrine of 
 Idealism, that "matter known only in relation 
 to us " can mean nothing more than " matter 
 known only through the mental impressions 
 of which it is the unknown cause/'''' runs 
 through the whole of Mr, Mill's argument 
 against this portion of Sir W. Hamilton's 
 teaching. That argument, though repeated 
 in various forms, may be briefly summed up 
 
 * The assumption that these two expressions are or ought to be 
 synonymous is tacitly made by Mr. Mill at the opening of this 
 chapter. He opens it with a passage from the Discussions, in 
 which Hamilton says that the existence of things in themselves is 
 only indirectly revealed to us "through certain qualities related to 
 our fctcultics of knoivlcdgc ;" and then proceeds to show that the 
 author did not hold the doctrine which these phrases "seem to 
 convey in the only siibstantial meaning capable of being attached 
 to them ;" namely, "that we know nothing of objects except their
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 79 
 
 in one thesis ; namely, that the doctrine 
 that our knowledofe of matter is whollv 
 relative is incompatible with the distinction, 
 which Hamilton expressly makes, between 
 the primary and secondary qualities of 
 body. 
 
 The most curious circumstance about this 
 criticism is, that, if not directly borrowed 
 from, it has at least been carefully anticipated 
 by, Hamilton himself Of the distinction 
 between primary and secondary qualities, 
 as acknowledged by Descartes and Locke, 
 
 existence, and the impressions procluced by them upon the human 
 mind." Having thiis quietly assumed that "things in themselves" 
 are identical with "objects," and "relations" with "impressions 
 on the human mind," Mr. Mill bases Iris whole criticism on this 
 tacit iKtitio in'iHciini. He is not aware that though Reid some- 
 times uses the tei'm relative in this inaccurate sense, Hamilton ex- 
 pressly points out the inaccuracy and explains the proper sense. — 
 (See RckVs Worlcs, pp. 313, 322.)
 
 8o The PhilosopJiy of the Conditioned. 
 
 whose theory of external perception is identi- 
 cal with that w^liich Mr. Mill would force on 
 Hamilton himself, Hamilton says : '' On the 
 general doctrine, however, of these philoso- 
 phers, both classes of qualities, as know^n, are 
 confessedly only states of our own minds ; 
 and while we have no right from a subjective 
 affection to infer the existence, far less the 
 corresponding character of the existence, of 
 any objective reality, it is evident that their 
 doctrine, if fairly evolved, w^ould result in a 
 dogmatic or in a sceptical negation of the 
 primary no less than of the secondaiy quali- 
 ties of body, as more than appearances in and 
 for us."""' It is astonishing that Mr. Mill, 
 who pounces eagerly on every imaginable 
 instance of Hamilton's inconsistency, should 
 have neglected to notice this, which, if his 
 
 * lUid's Worlcs, p. 840.
 
 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 8 1 
 
 criticism be true, is the most glaring incon- 
 sistency of all. 
 
 But Hamilton continues : " It is therefore 
 manifest that the fundamental position of a 
 consistent theory of dualistic realism is — that 
 our cognitions of Extension and its modes 
 are not wholly ideal — that although Space be 
 a native, necessary, a priori form of imagina- 
 tion, and so far, therefore, a mere subjective 
 state, that there is, at the same time, com- 
 petent to us, in an immediate perception 
 of external things, the consciousness of a 
 really existent, of a really objective, extended 
 world," Here we have enunciated in one 
 breath, first the subjectivity of space, which 
 is the logical basis of the relative theory of 
 perception ; and secondly, the objectivity of 
 the extended world, which is the logical 
 basis of the distinction between primary and 
 
 F
 
 82 The PhilosopJiy of the Conditioned. 
 
 secondary qualities. It is manifest, there- 
 fore, that Hamilton had not, as Mr. Mill 
 supposes, ceased to hold the one theoiy when 
 he adopted the other."' 
 
 The key to all this is not difficult to find. 
 It is simply that objective existence does not 
 mean existence per se ; and that a pheno- 
 menon does not mean a mere mode of mind- 
 Objective existence is existence as an object, 
 in perception, and therefore in relation ; and 
 a phenomenon may be material, as well as 
 mental. The thing pe^" se may be only the 
 unknown cause of what we directly know ; 
 but what we directly know is something 
 more than our own sensations. In other 
 words, the j^henomenal effect is material as 
 well as the cause, and is, indeed, that from 
 which our primary conceptions of matter are 
 
 * See Examination, p. 28.
 
 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 83 
 
 derived. Matter does not cease to be matter 
 when modified by its contact with mind, as 
 iron does not cease to be iron when smelted 
 and forged. A horseshoe is something very 
 different from a piece of iron ore ; and a man 
 may be acquainted with the foniier without 
 ever havino- seen the latter, or knowino- what 
 it is like. But w^ould Mr. Mill therefore say 
 that the horseshoe is merely a subjective 
 affection of the skill of the smith — that it is 
 not iron modified by the Vv^orkman, but the 
 workman or his art impressed by iron ? 
 
 If, indeed, Hamilton had said with Locke, 
 that the primary qualities are in the bodies 
 themselves, whether we perceive them or 
 no,''" he would have laid himself open to Mr. 
 Mill's criticism. But he expressly rejects 
 this statement, and contrasts it with the 
 
 * Essay, ii. 8, § 23.
 
 84 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 more cautious langfuaofe of Descartes, " ut 
 sunt, vel saltern esse possunt."'"' The second- 
 ary qualities are mere affections of conscious- 
 ness, which cannot be conceived as existing 
 except in a conscious subject. The primary 
 qualities are qualities of body, as perceived 
 in relation to the percipient mind, i. e., of 
 the phenomenal body perceived as in space. 
 How far they exist in the real body out of 
 relation to us, Hamilton does not attempt 
 to decide.t They are inseparable from our 
 
 * Reid's Works, p. 839. 
 
 + We have been content to argue this question, as Mr. Mill 
 himself argues it, on the supposition that Sir ~W. Hamilton held 
 that we are directly percipient of primary qualities in external 
 bodies. Strictly speaking, however, Hamilton held that the pri- 
 mary qualities are immediately perceived only in our organism as 
 extended, and inferred to exist in extra-organic bodies. The ex- 
 ternal world is immediately apprehended only in its secundo- 
 primary character, as resisting our locomotive energy. But as the 
 organism, in this theory, is a material non-ego equally with the rest 
 of matter, and as to press this distinction would only affect the
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 85 
 
 conception of body, which is derived exchi- 
 sively from the phenomenon ; they may or 
 may not be separable from the thing as it is 
 in itself. 
 
 Under this explanation, it is manifest that 
 the doctrine, that matter as a subject or 
 substratum of attributes is unknown and 
 unknowable, is totally different from that of 
 cosmothetic idealism, with which Mr Mill 
 
 verbal accuracy, not the substantial justice, of Mr. Mill's criti- 
 cisms, we have preferred to meet liim on the ground he has him- 
 self chosen. The same error, of supposing that " presentationism " 
 is identical -with " noumenalism, " and "phenomenalism" with "re- 
 pi'esentationism, " runs through the whole of Mr. Stirling's recent 
 criticism of Hamilton's theory of perception. It is curious, how- 
 ever, that the very passage {Lectures, i. , p. 146) which Mr. Mill 
 cites as proving that Hamilton, in spite of his professed phe- 
 nomenalism, was an unconscious noumenalist, is employed by Mr. 
 Stirling to prove that, in spite of his professed presentationism, he 
 was an unconscioiis representationist. The two critics tilt at 
 Hamilton from opposite quarters : he has only to stand aside anrl 
 let them run against each other.
 
 86 The PJiilosophy of tJie Conditioned. 
 
 confounds it f and that a pliilosopher may 
 without inconsistency accept the former and 
 reject the latter. The former, while it holds 
 the material substance to be unknown, does 
 not deny that some of the attributes of 
 matter are perceived immediately as material, 
 though, it may be, modified by contact with 
 mind. The latter maintains that the attri- 
 butes, as well as the substance, are not 
 perceived immediately as material, but medi- 
 ately through the intervention of immaterial 
 representatives. It is also manifest that, 
 in answer to Mr. Mill's question, which of 
 Hamilton's two '^ cardinal doctrines," Rela- 
 tivity or Natural Realism, ^' is to be taken in 
 a non-natural sense,"t we must say, neither. 
 The two doctrines are quite compatible with 
 each other, and neither requires a non-natural 
 
 * Examination, p. 23. + Examination, p. 20.
 
 TJic Philosophy of the Conditioned. 87 
 
 interpretation to reconcile it to its com- 
 panion. 
 
 The doctrine of relativity derives its chief 
 practical value from its connection witli the 
 next great doctrine of Hamilton's philosophy, 
 the incognisability of the Absolute and the 
 Infinite. For this doctrine brings Ontology 
 into contact with Theology ; and it is only in 
 relation to theology that ontology acquires a 
 practical importance. With respect to the 
 other two " ideas of the pure reason," as 
 Kant calls them, the human soul and the 
 world, the question, whether we know them 
 as realities or as phenomena, may assist us in 
 dealing with certain metaphysical difficulties, 
 but need not affect our practical conduct. 
 For we have an immediate intuition of the 
 attributes of mind and matter, at least as 
 phenomenal objects, and by these intuitions
 
 88 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 may be tested the accuracy of the conceptions 
 derived from them, sufficiently for all practi- 
 cal purposes. A man will equally avoid 
 walking over a precipice, and is logically as 
 consistent in avoiding it, whether he regard 
 the precipice as a real thing, or as a mere 
 phenomenon. But in the province of theo- 
 logy this is not the case. We have no im- 
 mediate intuition of the Divine attributes, 
 even as phenomena ; we only infer their 
 existence and nature from certain similar 
 attributes of which we are immediately con- 
 scious in ourselves. And hence arises the 
 question. How far does the similarity extend, 
 and to what extent is the accuracy of our 
 conceptions guaranteed by the intuition, not 
 of the object to be conceived, but of some- 
 thing more or less nearly resembling it? But 
 this is not all. Our knowledge of God, ori-
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 89 
 
 ginally derived from personal consciousness, 
 receives accession from two other sources — 
 from the external world, as His work ; and 
 from revelation, as His word ; and the 
 conclusions derived from each have to be 
 compared together. Should any discrepancy 
 arise between them, are we at once warranted 
 in rejecting one class of conclusions in favour 
 of the other two, or two in favour of the 
 third ? or are we at liberty to say that our 
 knowledge in respect of all alike is of such 
 an imperfect and indirect character that we 
 are warranted in believing that some recon- 
 ciliation may exist, though our ignorance 
 prevents us from discovering what it is ? 
 Here at least is a practical question of the 
 very highest importance. In the early part 
 of our previous remarks, we have endea- 
 voured to show how this question has been
 
 90 TJic Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 answered by orthodox theologians of various 
 ages, and how Sir W, Hamilton's philosophy 
 supports that answer. We have now to con- 
 sider Mr Mill's chapter of criticisms. 
 
 It is always unfortunate to make a stumble 
 on the threshold ; and Mr. Mill's opening 
 paragraph makes two. '^ The name of God," 
 he says, " is veiled under two extremely 
 abstract phrases, ' the Infinite and the Abso- 
 lute.' . . . But it is one of the most 
 unquestionable of all logical maxims, that 
 the meaning of the abstract must be sought 
 in the concrete, and not conversely."'"' — Now, 
 in the first jDlace, " the Infinite " and " the 
 Absolute," even in the sense in which they 
 are both predicable of God, are no more 
 names of God than "■ the creature " and " the 
 finite" are names of man. They are the 
 
 * Examination, p. 32.
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 91 
 
 names of certain attributes, which further 
 inquiry may, perhaps, show to belong to God 
 and to no other being, but which do not in 
 their signification express this, and do not 
 constitute our primary idea of God, wliich is 
 tliat of a Person. Men may beUeve in an 
 absolute and infinite, without in any proper 
 sense believing in God ; and thousands upon 
 thousands of pious men have prayed to a 
 personal God, who have never heard of the 
 absolute and the infinite, and who would not 
 understand the expressions if they heard 
 them. But, in the second place, '' the abso- 
 lute" and "the infinite," in Sir W. Hamilton's 
 sense of the terms, cannot both be names of 
 God, for the simple reason that they are con- 
 tradictory of each other, and are proposed as 
 alternatives which cannot both be accepted as 
 predicates of the same subject. For Hamil-
 
 92 The P kilos op ky of the Conditioned. 
 
 ton, whatever Mr. Mill may do, did not fall 
 into tlie absurdity of maintaining that God 
 in some of His attributes is absolute without 
 being infinite, and in others is infinite with- 
 out beino' absolute.'"" 
 
 o 
 
 But we have not yet done with this single 
 paragraph. After thus making two errors in 
 his exposition of his opponent's doctrine, Mr. 
 Mill immediately proceeds to a third, in his 
 criticism of it. By following his " most 
 unquestionable of all logical maxims," and 
 substituting the name of God in the place of 
 " the Infinite " and " the Absolute," he ex- 
 actly reverses Sir W. Hamilton's argument, 
 and makes his own attempted refutation of it 
 a glaring ignoratio elenchi. 
 
 One of the purposes of Hamilton's argu- 
 ment is to show that we have no positive 
 
 * See Examination, p. 35.
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 93 
 
 conception of an Infinite Being ; that when 
 we attempt to form such a conception, we do 
 but produce a distorted representation of the 
 finite ; and hence, that our so-called concep- 
 tion of the infinite is not the true infinite. 
 Hence it is not to be wondered at — nay, it is 
 a natural consequence of this doctrine, — that 
 our positive conception of God as a Person 
 cannot be included under this pseudo-concept 
 of the Infinite. Whereas Mr. Mill, by laying 
 down the maxim that the meaning of the 
 abstract must be sought in the concrete, 
 quietly assumes that this pseudo-infinite is 
 a proper predicate of God, to be tested by its 
 applicability to the subject, and that what 
 Hamilton says of tliis infinite cannot be true 
 unless it is also true of God. Of this refuta- 
 tion, Hamilton, were he living, might truly 
 say, as he said of a former criticism on
 
 94 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 another part of his writings, — " This elabo- 
 rate parade of argument is literally answered 
 in two words — Qiii^ duhitavit V 
 
 But if the substitution of God for the 
 Infinite be thus a perversion of Hamilton's 
 argument, what shall we say to a similar 
 substitution in the case of the Absolute ? 
 Hamilton distinctly tells us that there is one 
 sense of the term absolute in which it is 
 contradictory of the infinite, and therefore is 
 not predicable of God at all. Mr. Mill 
 admits that Hamilton, throughout the greater 
 part of his arguments, employs the term in 
 this sense ; and he then actually proceeds to 
 " test " these arguments " by substituting the 
 concrete, God, for the abstract. Absolute ;" 
 i.e., by substituting God for something which 
 Hamilton defines as contradictory to the 
 nature of God. Can the force of confusion
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 95 
 
 go further? Is it possible for perverse criti- 
 cism more utterly, Ave do not say to misre- 
 present, but literally to invert an author's 
 meanino- ? 
 
 o 
 
 The source of all these errors, and of a 
 great many more, is simply this. Mr. Mill 
 is aware, from Hamilton's express assertion, 
 that the word absolute may be used in two 
 distinct and even contradictory senses ; but he 
 is wholly unable to see what those senses are, 
 or when Hamilton is usinof the term in the 
 one sense, and when in the other. Let us en- 
 deavour to clear up some of this confusion. 
 
 Hamilton's article on the Philosophy of 
 the Unconditioned is a criticism, partly of 
 Schelling, pai^tly of Cousin ; and Schelling 
 and Cousin only attempted in a new form, 
 under the influence of the Kantian philo- 
 sophy, to solve the problem with which
 
 gG The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 philosophy in all ages has attempted to 
 grapple, — the problem of the Unconditioned. 
 " The unconditioned " is a term which, 
 while retaining the same general meaning, 
 admits of various applications, particular or 
 universal. It may be the unconditioned as 
 regards some special relation, or the uncon- 
 ditioned as reofards all relations whatever. 
 Thus there may be the unconditioned in 
 Psychology — the human soul considered as a 
 substance ; the unconditioned in Cosmology 
 — the world considered as a single whole ; the 
 unconditioned in Theology — God in His own 
 nature, as distinguished from His manifesta- 
 tions to us ; or, finally, the unconditioned 
 par excellence — the unconditioned in Onto- 
 logy — the being on which all other being 
 depends. It is of course possible to identify 
 any one of the three first with the last. It
 
 The PhilosopJiy of iJic Conditiotied. 97 
 
 is possible to adopt a system of Egoism, and 
 to maintain that all phenomena are modes of 
 my mind, and that the substance of my mind 
 is the only real existence. It is possible to 
 adopt a system of Materialism, and to main- 
 tain that all phenomena are modes of matter, 
 and that the material substance of the world 
 is the only real existence. Or it is possible 
 to adopt a system of Pantheism, and to 
 maintain that all phenomena are modes of 
 the Divine existence, and that God is the 
 only reality. But the several notions are in 
 themselves distinct, though one may ulti- 
 mately be predicated of another. 
 
 The general notion of the Unconditioned is 
 the same in all these cases, and all must 
 finally culminate in the last, the Uncondi- 
 tioned ])ar excellence. The general notion is 
 that of the One as distinguished from the 
 
 G
 
 98 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 Many, the substance from its accidents, the 
 permanent reahty from its variable modifica- 
 tions. Thought, will, sensation, are modes of 
 my existence. What is the / that is one and 
 the same in all ? Extension, figure, resist- 
 ance, are attributes of matter. What is 
 the one substance 'to which these attributes 
 belong ? But the generalisation cannot stop 
 liere. If matter differs from mind, the non- 
 <'(jo from the ego, as one thing from another, 
 there must be some special point of differ- 
 ence, which is the condition of the existence 
 of each in this or tliat particular manner. 
 Unconditioned existence, therefore, in the 
 hig'hest sense of the term, cannot be the 
 existence of tlds as distino-uished from that : 
 it must be existence j^er se, the ground and 
 principle of all conditioned or special exist- 
 ence. This is the Unconditioned, properly
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 99 
 
 so called : the unconditioned in Scliellinof's 
 sense, as the indifference of subject and 
 object : and it is against this that Hamilton's 
 arguments are directed. 
 
 The question is this. Is this Uncondi- 
 tioned a mere abstraction, the product of our 
 own minds ; or can it be conceived as having 
 a real existence per se, and, as such, can it 
 be identified with God as the source of all 
 existence ? Hamilton maintains that it is a 
 mere abstraction, and cannot be so identified ; 
 that, far from being " a name of God," it is a 
 name of nothmg at all. " By abstraction," 
 he says, " we annihilate the object, and by 
 abstraction we annihilate the subject of con- 
 sciousness. But wliat remains ? Nothing." 
 When we attempt to conceive it as a reality, 
 we " hypostatise the zero."'"' 
 
 * Discussions, p. 21.
 
 I oo The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 In order to conceive the Unconditioned 
 existing as a tiling, we must conceive it as 
 existing out of relation to everything else. 
 For if nothing beyond itself is necessary as a 
 condition of its existence, it can exist separate 
 from everything else ; and its pure existence 
 as the unconditioned is so separate. It must 
 therefore be conceivable as the sole existence, 
 having no plurality beyond itself; and as 
 simple, having no plurality within itself. 
 For if we cannot conceive it as existing apart 
 from other things, we cannot conceive it as 
 independent of them ; and if we conceive it 
 as a compound of parts, we have further to 
 ask as before, what is the principle of unity 
 which binds these j^arts into one whole ? If 
 there is such a principle, this is the true 
 unconditioned ; if there is no such principle, 
 there is no unconditioned ; for that Avliich
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned, i o i 
 
 cannot exist except as a compound is depen- 
 dent for its existence on that of its several 
 constituents. The unconditioned must there- 
 fore be conceived as one, as simple, and as 
 universal. 
 
 Is such a conception possible, whether in 
 ordinary consciousness, as Cousin says, or in 
 an extraordinary intuition, as Schelling says ? 
 Let us try the former. Consciousness is 
 subject to the law of Time. A phenomenon 
 is presented to us in time, as dependent on 
 some previous phenomenon or thing. I wish 
 to pursue the chain in thought till I arrive at 
 something independent. If I could reach in 
 thouo-ht a beofinninof of time, and discover 
 some first fact with nothing preceding it, I 
 should conceive time as absolute — as com- 
 pleted, — and the unconditioned as the first 
 thing in time, and therefore as completed
 
 I02 The PhilosopJiy of the Conditioned. 
 
 also, for it may be considered by itself, apart 
 from what depends upon it. Or if time be 
 considered as liavino- no beof-inninir, tliouo-lit 
 would still be able to represent to itself that 
 infinity, could it follow out the series of 
 antecedents for ever. But is either of these 
 alternatives possible to thought ? If not, w^e 
 must confess that the unconditioned is incon- 
 ceivable by ordinary consciousness ; and we 
 must found philosophy, with Schelling, on 
 the annihilation of consciousness. 
 
 But though Hamilton himself distinguishes 
 between the luiconditioned and the absolute, 
 using the former term generall}^, for that 
 which is out of all relation, and the latter 
 specially, for that which is out of all relation 
 as complete and finished, his opponent Cousin 
 uses the latter term in a wider sense, as 
 synonymous with the former, and the injimtc
 
 The P/dlosophy of the Conditioned. 103 
 
 as coextensive with both. This, however, 
 does not affect the validity of Hamilton's 
 arscument. For if it can be shown that the 
 absolute and the infinite (in Hamilton's sense) 
 are both inconceivable, the unconditioned (or 
 absolute in Cousin's sense), which must be 
 conceived as one or the other, is inconceivable 
 also. Or, conversely, if it can be shown that 
 the unconditioned, the unrelated in general, 
 is inconceivable, it follows that the absolute 
 and the infinite, as both involving the un- 
 related, are inconceivable also. 
 
 We may now proceed with Mr. Mill's 
 criticism. He says : — 
 
 "Absolute, in the sense in whicli it stands related to 
 Infinite, means (conformably to its etymology) that which 
 is finished or completed. There are some things of which 
 the iitmost ideal amount is a limited quantity, though a 
 ([uantity never actually reached. . . . We may speak
 
 1 04 The PhilosopJiy of the Conditioned. 
 
 of absolutely, Imt not oi' iniinitcly, pure water. Tlic 
 purity of water is not a fact of which, whatever degree we 
 suppose attained, there remains a greater beyond. It has 
 an absolute limit : it is capable of being finished or com- 
 plete, in thought, if not in reality." — (P. 34.) 
 
 This criticism is either incorrect or nildl ad 
 rem. If meant as a statement of Hamilton's 
 use of the term, it is incorrect : absolute, in 
 Hamilton's philosophy, does not mean simply 
 " completed," but " out of relation as com- 
 pleted;" i.e., self-existent in its completeness, 
 and not implying the existence of anything 
 else. If meant in any other sense than 
 Hamilton's, it is irrelevant. Can Mr. Mill 
 really have believed that Schelling thought 
 it necessary to invent an intellectual intuition 
 out of time and out of consciousness, in order 
 to contemplate " an ideal limited quantity," 
 such as the complete purity of water ? 
 
 Mr. Mill continues : —
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 105 
 
 " Though the idea of Absolute is thus contrasted with 
 tliat of Infinite, the one is equally fitted with the other to 
 he predicated of God ; hut not in respect of the same 
 attributes. There is no incorrectness of speech in the 
 plirase Infinite Power : because the notion it expresses is 
 tliat of a Ik'ing Avho has tlie power of doing all things 
 which we know or can conceive, and more. But in speak- 
 ing of knowledge, Absolute is the proper word, and not 
 Infinite. The highest degree of knowledge that can be 
 spoken of with a meaning, only amoimts to knoAving all 
 that there is to be known : when that point is reached, 
 knowledge has attained its utmost limit. So of goodness 
 or justice : they camiot be more than perfect. There are 
 not infinite degrees of right. The will is either entirely 
 right, or ^vrong in different degrees." — (P. 35.) 
 
 Surely, whatever Divine power can do, 
 Divine knowledge can know as possible to be 
 done. The one, therefore, must be as infinite 
 as the other. And what of Divine goodness? 
 An angel or a glorified saint is absolutely 
 good in Mr. MilFs sense of the term. His
 
 io6 The PhilosopJiy of the Conditioned. 
 
 " will is entirely right." Does Mr. Mill 
 mean to say that there is no difference, even 
 in degree, between the goodness of God and 
 that of one of His creatures ? But, even 
 supposing his statement to be true, how is 
 it relevant to the matter under discussion ? 
 Can Mr. Mill possibly be ignorant that all 
 these attributes are relations ; that the Abso- 
 lute in Hamilton's sense, "the unconditionally 
 limited," is not predicable of God at all ; and 
 that wdien divines and philosophers speak of 
 the absolute nature of God, they mean a 
 nature in wdiich there is no distinction of 
 attributes at all ? 
 
 Mr. Mill then proceeds to give a summar}^ 
 of Hamilton's arguments against Cousin, 
 preparatory to refuting them. In the course 
 of this sunnnary he says : — 
 
 " Let me ask, en jjassant, where is the necessity f(ir
 
 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 107 
 
 supposing that, if tlic Absolute, or, to speak plainly, it' 
 God, is only kunwn to us in the character of a cause, he 
 must therefore ' exist merely as a cause,' and he merely 'a 
 mean towards an end?' It is surely possilile to maintain 
 that the Deity is known to us only as he who feeds the 
 ravens, witliout supposing that the Divine Intelligence ex- 
 ists solely in order that the ravens may be fed."'" — (P. 42.) 
 
 (Jn this we would remark, en jxissant^ that 
 this is precisely Hamilton's own doctrine, 
 that the sphere of our belief is more ex- 
 
 * In a note to this passage, Mr. Mill makes some sarcastic com- 
 ments on an argument of Hamilton's against Cousin's theory that 
 God is necessarily determined to create. "On this hj^pothesis, " 
 says Hamilton, "God, as necessarily determined to pass from abso- 
 lute essence to relative manifestation, is determined to pass either 
 from the better to the worse, or from the worse to the better." Mr. 
 Mill calls this argument " a curiosity of dialectics," and answers, 
 " Perfect wisdom \\-ould have begun to will the new state at the 
 precise moment Avhen it began to be better than the old." Hamil- 
 ton is not speaking of states of things, but of states of the Divine 
 nature, as creative or not creative ; and Mr. Mill's argument, to 
 refute Hamilton, must suppose a time when the new nature of God 
 begins to be better than the old ! Mr. Mill would perhaps have 
 spoken of Hamilton's argument with more respect had he known 
 that it is taken from Plato.
 
 1 08 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 tensive than that of our knowledge. The 
 purport of Hamilton's argument is to show 
 that the Absolute, as conceived by Cousin, 
 is not a true Absolute {Injinito-Ahsolute), 
 and therefore does not represent the real 
 nature of God. His argument is this : 
 " Cousin's Absolute exists merely as a cause : 
 God does not exist merely as a cause : there- 
 fore Cousin's Absolute is not God." Mr. 
 Mill actually mistakes the position which 
 Hamilton is opposing for that which he is 
 maintainino-. Such an error does not lead 
 us to expect much from his subsequent re- 
 futation. 
 
 His first criticism is a curious specimen of 
 his reading in philosophy. He says : — • 
 
 " When the True or the Beautiful are spoken of, the 
 phrase is meant to inchide all things whatever that are 
 true, or all things Avhatever that are beautiful. If this
 
 The Philosophy of the CoJiditioiied. 1 09 
 
 rule is good for otlier abstractions, it is good for tlie Abso- 
 lute. The word is devoid of meaning unless in reference 
 to predicates of some sort. ... If we are told, there- 
 fore, that there is some Being Avho is, or which is, the 
 Absolute, — not something absolute, but the Absolute 
 itself, — the proposition can be understood in no other 
 sense than that the supposed Being possesses in absolute 
 completeness all predicates ; is absolutely good and abso- 
 lutely bad ; absolutely Avise and absolutely stupid ; and so 
 forth."'"— (P. 43.) 
 
 Plato expressly distinguishes between "the 
 beautiful " and " things that are beautiful/' 
 as the One in contrast to the Many — the 
 Real in contrast to the Apparent, t It is, of 
 course, quite possible that Plato may be 
 
 * In support of this position, Mr. Mill cites Hegel — " A\Tiat 
 kind of an absolute Being is that which does not contain in itself 
 all that is actual, even evil included ?" We are not concerned to 
 defend Hegel's position ; but he was not quite so absurd as to mean 
 what Jlr. Mill supposes him to have meant. Does not Mr. IVlill 
 know that it was one of Hegel's fundamental positions, that the 
 Divine nature cannot be expressed by a plurality of predicates ? 
 
 t Bf public, book v., p. 479.
 
 1 1 o The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 wrong, and Mr. Mill right ; but the mere 
 fact of their antagonism is sufficient to show 
 that the meaning of " the phrase " need not 
 be what Mr. Mill supposes it must be. In 
 fact, '' the Absolute " in philosophy always 
 has meant the One as distinofuished from the 
 Many, not the One as including the Many. 
 But, as applied to Sir W. Hamilton, Mr. 
 Mill's remarks on " the Absolute," and his 
 subsequent remarks on " the Infinite," not 
 only misrepresent Hamilton's position, but 
 exactly reverse it. Hamilton maintains that 
 the tenns '' absolute " and " infinite " are per- 
 fectly intelligible as abstractions, as much so 
 as " relative " and " finite ;" for " correlatives 
 suggest each other," and the " knowledge 
 of contradictories is one ; " but he denies 
 that a concrete thing or object can be posi- 
 tively conceived as absolute or infinite. Mr.
 
 The PhilosopJiy of the Conditioned, i i i 
 
 Mill represents him as only proving that the 
 '* unmeaning abstractions are unknowable," — 
 abstractions which Hamilton does not assert 
 to be unmeaning, and which he regards as 
 knowable in the only sense in which such 
 abstractions can be known, viz., by under- 
 standing- the meaninp- of their names. ""' 
 
 " Souiethiiig iiilinite," says Mr. Mill, " is a conception 
 which, like most of our complex ideas, contains a negative 
 element, but which contains positive elements also. In- 
 tinite space, for instance ; is there nothing positive in 
 tliat % The negative part of this conception is the absence 
 
 * This confusion between conceiving a concrete thing and 
 knowing the meaning of abstract terms is as okl as Toland's 
 Christianity nut Mysterious, and, indeed, has its germ, though not 
 its development, in the teaching of his assumed master, Locke. 
 Locke taught that all our knowledge is founded on simple ideas, 
 and that a complex idea is merely an accumulation of simple ones. 
 Hence Toland maintained that no object could be mysterious or 
 inconceivable if the terms in which its several attributes are ex- 
 pressed have ideas corresponding to them. But, in point of fact, 
 no simple idea can be conceived as an object by itself, though the 
 word by which it is signified has a perfectly intelligible meaning.
 
 I I 2 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 of bounds. Tlie positive are, tlie idea of space, and of 
 space greater than any finite space." — (P. 45.) 
 
 This definition of infinite space is exactly 
 that which Descartes gives us of indefinite 
 extension, — " Ita quia non possumus imagi- 
 nari extensionem tarn magnani, quin intelh- 
 ganius aclhuc majoreni esse posse, dicemus 
 magnitudinem rerum possibiliuni esse inde- 
 fi.nitam." "' So too, Cudworth, — " There 
 appeareth no sufficient ground for tliis posi- 
 tive infinity of space ; we being certain of no 
 
 I cannot, e. g., conceive whiteness by itself, though I can conceive 
 a white wall, i. e., whiteness in combination with other attributes 
 in a concrete object. To conceive attributes as coexisting, how- 
 ever, we must conceive tliem as coexisting in a certain manner ; for 
 an object of conception is not a mere heap of ideas, but an organized 
 whole, whose constituent ideas exist in a particular combination 
 with and relation to each other. To conceive, therefore, we must 
 not only be able to apprehend each idea separately in the abstract, 
 but also the manner in which they may possibly exist in combina- 
 tion with each other. 
 * Prineipia, i., 26.
 
 The Philosophy of the Cofiditioned. 113 
 
 more than this, that be the world or any 
 figurative body never so great, it is not 
 impossible but that it might be still greater 
 and greater without end. Which indejinite 
 increasableness of body and space seems to be 
 mistaken for a j^os^Vu'e injinity thereof.'""' 
 And Locke, a philosopher for whom Mr. 
 Mill will probably have more respect than 
 for Descartes or Cudworth, writes more 
 plainly : "To have actually in the mind the 
 idea of a space infinite, is to suppose the 
 mind already passed over, and actually to 
 have a view of all those repeated ideas of 
 space, which an endless repetition can never 
 totally represent to it, — which carries in it 
 a plain contradiction. "t Mr. Mill thus un- 
 wittingly illustrates, in his own person, the 
 
 * Intdhdual System, ed. Harasoii, vol. iii., p. 131. 
 t Essay, ii., 17, 7. 
 
 H
 
 1 1 4 The PhilosopJiy of the Conditioned. 
 
 truth of Hamilton's remark, "If we dream 
 of effecting tliis [conceiving the infinite in 
 time or space], we only deceive ourselves by 
 substituting the indefinite for the infinite, 
 than which no two notions can be more 
 opposed." In fact, Mr. Mill does not seem 
 to be aware that what the mathematician 
 calls iiifinite, the metaphysician calls inde- 
 finite, and that arguments drawn from the 
 mathematical use of the term infinite are 
 wholly irrelevant to the metaphysical. How, 
 indeed, could it be otherwise? Can any man 
 suppose that, when the Divine attributes are 
 spoken of as infinite, it is meant that they 
 are indefinitely increasable ?'"" 
 
 * One of the ablest mathematicians, and the most persevering 
 Hamiltono-niastix of the day, maintains the applicahility of the 
 metaphysical notion of infinity to mathematical magnitudes ; but 
 witli an assumption which unintentionally vindicates Hamilton's 
 position more fully than could have been done by a professed dis-
 
 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned, i r 5 
 
 lii fact, it is the '' concrete reality," the 
 " something infinite," and not tlie mere 
 abstraction of infinity, which is only con- 
 ceivable as a negation. Every " something " 
 that has ever been intuitively present to my 
 consciousness is a something finite. When, 
 therefore, I speak of a '' something infinite," 
 
 ciple. "I shall assume," says Professor De Morgan, in a paper 
 recently printed among the Traiisactions of the Cambridge Philo- 
 sophical Society, "the notion of infinity and of its reciprocal in- 
 finitesimal : that a line can be conceived infinite, and therefore 
 having points at an infinite distance. Image apart, which we can- 
 not have, it seems to me clear that a line of infinite length, with- 
 out points at an infinite distance, is a contradiction." Now it is 
 easy to sliow, by mere reasoning, without any image, that this 
 assumption is equally a contradiction. For if space is finite, every 
 line in space must be finite also ; and if space is infinite, every 
 point in space must have infinite space beyond it in every direction, 
 and therefore cannot be at the greatest possible distance from another 
 l)oint. Or thus : Any two points in space are the extremities of 
 the line connecting them ; but an infinite line has no extremities ; 
 therefore no two points in space can be connected together by an 
 infinite line.
 
 1 1 6 TJic Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 I mean a sometliino- existino: in a different 
 manner from all the " somethinofs " of wliicli 
 I have had experience in intuition. Thus it 
 is apprehended, not positively, but negatively 
 — not directly by what it is, but indirectly 
 by what it is not. A negative idea is not 
 negative because it is expressed by a nega- 
 tive term, but because it has never been 
 realised in intuition. If infinity, as applied 
 to space, means the same tiling as being 
 greater than any finite space, both concep- 
 tions are equally positive or equally negative. 
 If it does not mean the same thing, then, in 
 conceiving a space greater than any finite 
 space, we do not conceive an infinite space. 
 
 Mr. Mill's next string of criticisms may 
 be very briefly dismissed. First, Hamilton 
 does not, as Mr. Mill asserts, say that " the 
 Unconditioned is inconceivable, because it
 
 The PJdlosophy of tJic Conditioned. 1 1 7 
 
 includes both the Infinite and the Absolute, 
 and these are contradictoiy ol one another." 
 His argument is a common disjunctive syl- 
 logism. The unconditioned, if conceivable at 
 all, must be conceived either as the absolute 
 or as the infinite ; neither of these is pos- 
 sible ; therefore the unconditioned is not 
 conceivable at all. Nor, secondly, is Sir W. 
 Hamilton guilty of the " strange confusion 
 of ideas" which Mr. Mill ascribes to him, 
 when he says that the Absolute, as being 
 absolutely One, cannot be known under the 
 conditions of plurality and difference. The 
 absolute, as such, must be out of all relation, 
 and consequently cannot be conceived in the 
 relation of plurality. " The plurality re- 
 quired," says Mr. Mill, " is not within the 
 thing itself, but is made up between itself 
 and other things." It is, in fact, both ;
 
 T 1 8 The PhilosopJiy of the Conditioiieel. 
 
 but even granting Mr. Mill's assumption, 
 what is a " plurality between a thing and 
 other thino-s " but a relation between them ? 
 There is undoubtedly a " strange confusion 
 of ideas " in this paragraph ; but the con- 
 fusion is not on the part of Sir W. Hamilton. 
 '' Again," continues Mr. Mill, " even if we 
 concede that a thing cannot be known at all 
 unless known as plural, does it follow that it 
 cannot be known as plural because it is also 
 One ? Since when have the One and the 
 Many been incompatible things, instead of 
 different aspects of the same thing ? . . . 
 If there is any meaning in the words, must 
 not Absolute Unity be Absolute Plurality 
 likewise?" Mr. Mill's ^' since when?" may 
 be answered in the words of Plato : — ^" Ot;^e)' 
 
 eijioiye utottov ooKe'i elvai el eJ' airavTU uirocbalveL 
 Ti? Tw ixeTeyeiv tov evo^ kui tuvtu Tavra ttoWu
 
 The PJulosophy of the Conditioned, i i 9 
 
 T6D liX^Qoix; av fxeTeyeiv aX\ e« o 'Icttiv ei', auro 
 TOVTO TToWu UTrovel^ei, Koi uu tu iroWa (Vj ev, 
 
 TovTo 'i'i()}] Ouvjuda-ofxai."'"' Here we are ex- 
 pressly told that " absolute unity " cannot be 
 " absolute plurality." Mr. Mill may say that 
 Plato is wrong ; but he will hardly go so far 
 as to say that there is no meaning in his 
 w^ords. In point of fact, however, it is Mr. 
 Mill who is in error, and not Plato. In 
 different relations, no doubt, the same con- 
 crete object may be regarded as one or as 
 many. The same measure is one foot or 
 twelve inches ; the same sum is one shilling 
 or twelve pence ; but it no more follows that 
 " absolute unity must be absolute plurality 
 likewise," than it follows from the above 
 instances that one is equal to twelve. And, 
 thirdly, when Mr. Mill accuses Sir W. 
 
 * Parmenidcs, p. 129.
 
 120 TJie Philosophy of tJie Conditioned. 
 
 Hamilton of departing from his own mean- 
 inof of the term absolute, in maintaining- that 
 the Absolute cannot be a Cause, he only 
 shows that he does not himself know what 
 Hamilton's meaning is. " If Absolute/' he 
 says, '^ means finished, perfected, completed, 
 may there not be a finished, perfected, and 
 completed Cause ? " Hamilton's Absolute is 
 that which is "out of relation, as finished, 
 perfect, complete ;" and a Cause, as such, is 
 both in relation and incomplete. It is in 
 relation to its effect ; and it is incomplete 
 without its effect. Finally, when Mr. Mill 
 charges Sir W. Hamilton with maintaining 
 " that extension and fiafure are of the essence 
 of matter, and perceived as such by intui- 
 tion," we must briefly reply that Hamilton 
 does no such thing. He is not sjDeaking 
 of the essence of matter j;er se, but only
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 1 2 1 
 
 of matter as apprehended in relation to 
 us. 
 
 Mr. Mill concludes this chapter with an 
 attempt to discover the meaning of Hamil- 
 ton's assertion, "to think is to condition." 
 We have already explained what Hamilton 
 meant by this expression ; and we recur to 
 the subject now, only to show the easy 
 manner in which Mr. Mill manages to miss 
 the point of an argument with the clue 
 lying straight before him. '' Did any," he 
 says (of those who say that the Absolute is 
 thinkable), '^ profess to think it in any other 
 manner than by distinguishing it from other 
 things ? " Now this is the very thing which, 
 according to Hamilton, Schelling actually 
 did. Mr. Mill does not attempt to show 
 that Hamilton is wrong in his interpretation 
 of Schelling, nor, if he is right, what were
 
 1 2 2 The PJiilosopJiy of the Conditioned. 
 
 the reasons which led Schelling to so para- 
 doxical a position : he simply assumes that 
 no man could hold Schellino-'s view, and 
 there is an end of it.'" Hamilton's purpose 
 is to reassert in substance the doctrine 
 which Kant maintained, and which Schelling 
 denied ; and the natural way to ascertain his 
 meaning would he by reference to these two 
 philosophers. But this is not the method of 
 
 * Mr. Mill does not expressly name Schelling in tins sentence : 
 but lie does so shortly aftenvards ; and his remark is of the same 
 character with the previous one. " Even Schelling," he says, 
 "was not so gratuitously absurd as to deny that the Absolute 
 must be known according to the capacities of that which knows 
 it — though he was forced to invent a special capacity for the pur- 
 pose." But if this capacity is an " invention" of Schelling's, and 
 if he was "forced" to invent it, Hamilton's point is proved. To 
 think, according to all the real operations of thought which con- 
 sciousness makes known to us, is to condition. And the faculty 
 of the unconditioned is an invention of Schelling's, not known to 
 consciousness. In other words : all our real faculties bear witness 
 to the truth of Hamilton's statement ; and the only way of contro- 
 verting it is to invent an imaginary faculty for the purpose.
 
 TJic PhilosopJiy of the Conditioned. 1 2 3 
 
 Mr. Mill, here or elsewhere. He generally 
 endeavours to ascertain Hamilton's meaning 
 by ranging the wide field of possibilities. 
 He tells us what a phrase means in certain 
 authors of whom Hamilton is not thinking, 
 or in reference to certain matters which 
 Hamilton is not discussing ; but he hardly 
 ever attempts to trace the history of Hamil- 
 ton's own view, or the train of thought by 
 which it suggested itself to his mind. And 
 the result of this is, that Mr. Mill's inter- 
 pretations are generally in the potential 
 mood. He wastes a good deal of conjecture 
 in discoverino- what Hamilton mio-ht have 
 meant, when a little attention in the right 
 quarter would have shown what he did 
 mean. 
 
 The third feature of Hamilton's philosophy 
 which we charged Mr. Mill with misunder-
 
 124 TJic Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 standing, is the distinction between Know- 
 ledge and Belief. In the early part of this 
 article, we endeavoured to explain the true 
 nature of this distinction ; we have now only 
 a very limited space to notice Mr. Mill's 
 criticisms on it. Hamilton, he says, ad- 
 mitted '^ a second source of intellectual con- 
 viction called Belief." Now Belief is not a 
 " source " of any conviction, but the convic- 
 tion itself No man w^ould say that he is 
 convinced of the truth of a proposition 
 because he believes it ; his belief in its truth 
 is the same thino' as his conviction of its 
 truth. Belief, then, is not a source of con- 
 viction, but a conviction having sources of its 
 own. The question is, have we legitimate 
 sources of conviction, distinct from those 
 which constitute Knowledge properly so 
 called ? Now here it should be remembered
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 125 
 
 that the distinction is not one invented by 
 Hamilton to meet the exigencies of his own 
 system. He enumerates as many as twenty- 
 two authors, of the most various schools 
 of philosophy, who all acknowledged it 
 before him. Such a concurrence is no slight 
 argument in favour of the reality of the 
 distinction. We do not say that these 
 writers, or Hamilton himself, have always 
 expressed this distinction in the best lan- 
 guage, or applied it in the best manner ; but 
 we say that it is a true distinction, and that 
 it is valid for the principal purpose to wiiich 
 Hamilton applied it. 
 
 We do not agree with all the details of 
 Hamilton's application. We do not agree 
 with him, though he is supported by very 
 eminent authorities, in classifying our con- 
 viction of axiomatic principles as helief, and
 
 I 2 6 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 not as knowlechje.'"' But this question does 
 not directly bear on Mr, Mill's criticism. 
 The point of that criticism is, that Hamilton, 
 by admitting a belief in the infinite and 
 unrelated, nullifies his own doctrine, that all 
 knowledge is of the finite and relative. Let 
 us see, 
 
 * Hamilton's distinction is in principle the same as that wliirh 
 we have given in our previous remarks (pp. 18, 19). He says, " A 
 conviction is incomprehensible when there is merely given to us in 
 consciousness — That its object is {on ^an), and when we are unable 
 to comprehend through a higher notion or belief JVhy or Hotv it 
 is {SwTi iart)." — {Rcicl's Works, p. 754.) We Avould distinguish 
 between why and how, between Siort and wws. We. can give no 
 reason why two straight lines cannot enclose a space ; but we can 
 comprehend hoio they cannot. We have only to form the corres- 
 ponding image, to see the manner in which the two attributes 
 <;oexist in one object. But when I say that I believe in the exist- 
 ence of a spu-itual being who sees without eyes, I cannot conceive 
 the manner in which seeing coexists with the absence of the bodily 
 organ of sight. We believe that the true distinction between 
 knowledge and belief may ultimately be referred to the presence 
 ( ir absence of the corresponding intuition ; but to show this in the 
 various instances would require a longer dissertation than our 
 present limits will allow.
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 1 2 7 
 
 We may believe that a thing is, without 
 being able to conceive liov) it is. I believe 
 that God is a person, and also tliat He is 
 infinite ; though I cannot conceive how the 
 attributes of personality and infinity exist 
 together. All my knowledge of personality 
 is derived from my consciousness of my own 
 finite personality. I therefore believe in the 
 coexistence of attributes in God, in some 
 manner different from that in which they 
 coexist in me as limiting each other : and 
 thus I believe in the fact, though I am 
 unable to conceive the manner. So, again, 
 Kant brings certain counter arguments, to 
 prove, on the one side, that the world has a 
 beginning in time, and, on the other side, 
 that it has not a beginning. Now suppose 
 I am unable to refute either of these courses 
 of argument, am I therefore compelled to
 
 128 TJic PhilosopJiy of the Conditioned. 
 
 have no belief at all ? May I not say, I 
 believe, in spite of Kant, tliat the world has 
 a beginning in time, though I am unable to 
 conceive how it can have so begun ? What 
 is this, again, but a belief in an absolute 
 reality beyond the sphere of my relative 
 knowledge ? 
 
 " I am not now considering," says Mr. 
 Mill, " what it is that, in our author's 
 opinion, we are bound to believe concerning 
 the unknowable." Why, this was the very 
 thing he ought to have considered, before 
 pronouncing the position to be untenable, or 
 to be irreconcilable with something else. 
 Meanwhile, it is instructive to observe that 
 Mr. Mill himself believes, or requires his 
 readers to believe, something concerning the 
 unknown. He does not know, or at any rate 
 he does not tell his readers, what Hamilton
 
 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 129 
 
 requires them to believe concerning the 
 unknowable ; but he himself believes, and 
 requires them to believe, that this unknown 
 something is incompatible with the doctrine 
 tliat knowledge is relative. We cannot re- 
 gard this as a very satisfactory mode of 
 refuting Hamilton's thesis/''' 
 
 * In a subsequent chapter (p. 120), Mr. Mill endeavours to 
 overthrow this distinction between Knowledge and Belief, by means 
 of Hamilton's own theory of Consciousness. Hamilton maintains 
 that we cannot be conscious of a mental operation without being 
 conscious of its object. On this Mr. Mill retorts that if^ as 
 Hamilton admits, we are conscious of a belief in the Infinite and 
 the Absolute, we must be conscious of the Infinite and the Abso- 
 lute themselves ; and such consciousness is Knowledge. The fallacy 
 of this retort is transparent. The immediate object of Belief is a 
 pro2iosition which I hold to be true, not a thiiuj apprehended in an 
 act of conception. I believe in an infinite God ; i. e. , I believe 
 tJiat God is infinite : I believe that the attributes which I ascribe to 
 God exist in Him in an infinite degi-ee. Now, to believe this pro- 
 position, I must, of course, be conscious of its meaning ; but I am 
 not therefore conscious of the Infinite God as an object of concep- 
 tion ; for tliis would require further an apprehension of the manner 
 in which these infinite attributes coexist so as to form one object. 
 The whole argument of this eighth chapter is confused, owing to
 
 1 30 The Philosophy of the Condiiioiied. 
 
 But if Mr. Mill is unjust towards the 
 distinction between Knowledge and Belief, 
 as held by Sir W. Hamilton, he makes 
 ample amends to the injured theory in the 
 next chapter, by enlarging the province of 
 credibility far beyond any extent which 
 Hamilton would have dreamed of claiming- 
 for it. Conceivability or inconceivablity, he 
 tells us, are usually dependent on association; 
 and it is quite j)ossible that, under other 
 associations, we might be able to conceive, 
 and therefore to believe, anything short of 
 the direct contradiction that the same thing 
 is and is not. It is not in itself incredible 
 that a square may at the same time be 
 
 Mr. Mill not having distinguished between those passages in which 
 Sir W. Hamilton is merely using an argumentum ad hominem in 
 relation to Eeid, and those in which he is reasoning from general 
 principles.
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 1 3 1 
 
 round, that two straight Hnes may enclose a 
 space, or even that two and two may make 
 five/" But whatever concessions Mr, Mill 
 may make on this point, he is at least fully 
 determined that Sir W. Hamilton shall 
 derive no benefit from them ; for he forth- 
 with proceeds to charge Sir William with 
 confusinof three distinct senses of the term 
 conception — a confusion which exists solely 
 in his own imagination, t — and to assert that 
 
 * In reference to this last paradox, Mr. Mill quotes from Essays 
 by a Barrister: "There is a world in which, whenever two pairs 
 of things are either placed in proximity or are contemplated together, 
 a fifth thing is immediately created and brought within the con- 
 temi^lation of tlie mind engaged in putting two and two together. 
 ... In such a world surely two and two would make five. That 
 is, the result to the mind of contemplating two twos would be to 
 count five. " The answer to this reasoning has been already given 
 by Archdeacon Lee in his Essay on Miracles. The "five" in this 
 case is not the sum of two and two, but of two and tv^o plios the new 
 creature, i.e., of two and two^;Z((s one. 
 
 + The sense in which Sir W. Hamilton himself uses the word 
 co7ice2)tion is explained in a note to Eeid's JVorks, p. 377 — namely.
 
 T32 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 the Pliilosopliy of the Conditioned is entirely 
 founded on a mistake, inasmuch as infinite 
 space on the one hand, and, on the other, 
 both an absohite minimum and an infinite di- 
 visibiHty of space, are perfectly conceivable. 
 With reofard to the former of these two 
 assertions, Mr. Mill's whole argument is 
 
 the combination of two or more attributes in a unity of rcprescnla- 
 tion. The second sense which Mr. Mill imagines is simply a mis- 
 take of his own. When Hamilton speaks of being "unable to 
 conceive as possible," he does not mean, as Mr. Mill supposes, 
 physically possible under the law of gravitation or some other law 
 of matter, but mentally possible as a representation or image ; and 
 thus the supposed second sense is identical with the first. The 
 third sense may also be reduced to the first ; for to conceive two 
 attributes as combined in one representation is to form a notion 
 subordinate to those of each attribute separately. We do not say 
 that Sir W. Hamilton has been uniformly accurate in his application 
 of the test of conceivability ; but we say that his inaccuracies, such 
 as they are, do not aff'ect the theory of the conditioned, and that in 
 all the long extracts which Mr. Mill quotes, with footnotes, indi- 
 cating "first sense," " second sense," " third sense, " the author's 
 meaning may be more accurately explained in the first sense only.
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 133 
 
 vitiated, as we have already shown, by his 
 confusion between infinite and indefinite ; 
 but it is worth while to quote one of his 
 special instances in this chapter, as a speci- 
 men of the kind of reasoning which an 
 eminent writer on losfic can sometimes em- 
 ploy. In reference to Sir W. Hamilton's 
 assertion, that infinite space would require 
 infinite time to conceive it, he says, " Let us 
 try the doctrine upon a complex whole, short 
 of infinite, such as the number 695,788. Sir 
 W. Hamilton would not, I suppose, have 
 maintained that this number is inconceivable. 
 How lonof did he think it would take to p"o 
 over every separate unit of this whole, so as 
 to obtain a perfect knowledge of the exact 
 sum, as different from all other sums, either 
 greater or less ? " 
 
 It is marvellous that it should not have
 
 134 ^Z^*^' Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 occurred to Mr. Mill, while he was writing 
 this passage, "How comes this large number 
 to be a ^ whole' at all ; and how comes it that 
 ' this whole,' with all its units, can be written 
 down by means of six digits ?" Simply 
 because of a conventional arrangement, by 
 which a single digit, according to its position, 
 can express, by one mark, tens, hundreds, 
 thousands, &c., of units ; and thus can ex- 
 haust the sum by dealing with its items in 
 large masses. But how can such a process 
 exhaust the infinite ? We should like to 
 know how lonof Mr. Mill thinks it would 
 take to work out the following problem : — 
 " If two figures can represent ten, three a 
 hundred, four a thousand, five ten thousand, 
 &c., find the number of figures required to 
 represent infinity."'" 
 
 * Precisely the same iniseonception of Hamilton's position occurs
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 135 
 
 Infinite divisibility stands or falls with 
 infinite extension. In both cases Mr. Mill 
 confounds infinity with indefiniteness. But 
 with regard to an absolute minimum of space, 
 Mr. Mill's argument requires a separate 
 notice, 
 
 " It is not denied," he says, " that there is a portion of 
 extension Avhich to tlie naked eye appears an indivisible 
 point ; it has been called by philosophers the minimum 
 visihihi. This minimum we can indefinitely magnify by 
 means of optical instruments, making visible the still 
 smaller parts which compose it. In each successive ex- 
 periment there is still a minimum visihile, anjiihing less 
 than which cannot be discovered with that instrument, 
 but can with one of a liigher power. Suppose, now, that 
 
 in Professor De Morgan's paper in the Cambridge Transactions, 
 to which we have previously referred. He speaks (p. 13) of the 
 "notion, which runs through many writers, from Descartes to 
 Hamilton, that the mind must be big enough to Jiold all it can con- 
 ceive." This notion is certainly not maintained by Hamilton, nor 
 yet by Descartes in the paragraph quoted by Mr. De Morgan ; nor, 
 as far as we are aware, in any other part of his works.
 
 136 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 as we increase tlie magnifying power of our instruments, 
 anil before we have readied the limit of possible increase, 
 we arrive at a stage at which that which seemed the 
 smallest visible space under a given microscope, does not 
 appear larger under one which, by its mechanical construc- 
 tion, is adapted to magnify more, but still remains appa- 
 rently indivisible. I say, that if this happened, we should 
 believe in a minimum of extension ; or if some a jn'iori 
 metaphysical prejudice prevented us from believing it, we 
 sho'dd at least be enabled to conceive it." — (P. 84.) 
 
 The natural conclusion of most men under 
 such circumstances would be, that there was 
 some fault in the microscope. But even if 
 this conclusion were rejected, we presume 
 Mr. Mill would allow that, under the supposed 
 circumstances, the exact magnitude of the 
 minimum of extension would be calculable. 
 We have only to measure the minimum 
 visihile, and know what is the magnifying 
 power of our microscope, to determine the
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 1 3 7 
 
 exact dimensions. Suppose, then, that we 
 assign to it some definite magnitude — say 
 the ten biUionth part of an inch, — should we 
 then conclude that it is impossible to con- 
 ceive the twenty billionth part of an inch ? — 
 in other words, that we have arrived at a 
 definite maofnitude which has no conceivable 
 half? Surely this is a somewhat rash con- 
 cession to be made by a writer w^ho has just 
 told us that numbers may be conceived up to 
 infinity ; and therefore, of course, down to 
 infinitesimality. 
 
 Mr. Mill concludes this chapter with an 
 assertion which, even by itself, is sufficient to 
 show how very little he has attended to or 
 understood the philosophy which he is at- 
 tempting to criticise. " The law of Excluded 
 Middle," he says, "as well as that of Con- 
 tradiction, is common to all phenomena.
 
 138 The Philosophy of tJic Conditioned. 
 
 But it is a doctrine of our author that these 
 laws are true, and cannot but be known to 
 be true, of Noumena Hkewise. It is not 
 merely Space as cognisable by our senses, 
 but Space as it is in itself, which he affirms 
 must be either of unlimited or of limited 
 extent" (p. 86). At this sentence we fairly 
 stand aghast. " Space as it is in itself ! " 
 the Noumenon Space ! Has Mr. Mill been 
 all this while ''examining" Sir William 
 Hamilton's philosophy, in utter ignorance 
 that the object of that philosophy is the 
 " Conditioned in Time and Space ;" that he 
 accepts Kant's analysis of time and space as 
 formal necessities of thought, but pronounces 
 no opinion whatever as to whether time and 
 space can exist as Noumena or not ? It is 
 the phenomenal space, " space as cognisable 
 by our senses," which Sir W. Hamilton says
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 139 
 
 must be either limited or unlimited : con- 
 cerning the Noumenon Space, he does not 
 hazard an opinion whether such a thing 
 exists or not. He says, indeed (and this is 
 probably what has misled Mr. Mill), that the 
 laws of Identity, Contradiction, and Ex- 
 cluded Middle, are laws of things as well as 
 laws of thought ;"' but he says nothing about 
 these laws as predicating infinite or finite 
 extension. On the contrary, he expressly 
 classifies Space under the law^ of Relativity, 
 the violation of which indicates what may 
 exist, but what we are unable to conceive as 
 existing. Briefly, the law of Excluded 
 Middle (to take this instance alone) is a law 
 of things only in its abstract form, " Every- 
 thing must be A or not iV" {extended, if you 
 please, or not extended) ; but in its subordi- 
 
 * Discussions, p. 603.
 
 1 40 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 iiate form, *' Everything extended must be 
 extended infinitely or finitely/' it is only 
 applicable, and only intended by Hamilton 
 to be applied, to those phenomena which are 
 already given as extended in some degree. 
 
 We have now examined the first six chap- 
 ters of Mr. Mill's book, containing his 
 remarks on that portion of Sir W. Hamil- 
 ton's philosophy which he justly regards as 
 comprising the most important of the doc- 
 trines which specially belong to Hamilton 
 himself. The next chapter is an episode, 
 in which Mr, Mill turns aside from Sir W. 
 Hamilton to criticise Mr. Mansel's Bampton 
 Lectures. As our limits do not permit 
 us to carry on the argument at present 
 through the remainder of Mr. Mill's remarks 
 on Hamilton himself, we shall conclude our 
 notice with a few words on this chapter, as
 
 TJic Philosophy of the Conditioned. 141 
 
 closing the properly metaphysical portion of 
 Mr. Mill's book, and as affording ample 
 proof that, in this department of philosophy 
 at least, Mr. Mill's- powers of misapprehen- 
 sion do not cease when Sir W. Hamilton is 
 no longer their object. 
 
 Mr. Mill's method of criticism makes it 
 generally necessary to commence with a 
 statement of the criticised theory as it really 
 is, before proceeding to his exposition of it as 
 it is not. The present instance offers no 
 exception to this rule. Mr. Mansel's argu- 
 ment may be briefly stated as follows. The 
 primary and essential conception of God, 
 imperatively demanded by our moral and 
 religious consciousness, is that of a person. 
 But personality implies intellectual and 
 moral attributes ; and the only direct and 
 immediate knowledg-e which we have of such
 
 142 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 attributes is derived from the testimony of 
 self-consciousness, bearing witness to their 
 existence in a certain manner in ourselves. 
 But when we endeavour to transfer the 
 conception of personality, thus obtained, to 
 the domain of theology, we meet with certain 
 difficulties, which, while they are not suf- 
 ficient to hinder us from helieving in the 
 Divine Personality as a fact, yet hinder us 
 from conceiving the manner of its existence, 
 and prevent us from exhibiting our belief as 
 a philosophical conclusion, proved by irre- 
 fragable reasoning and secured against all 
 objections. These difficulties are occasioned, 
 on the one hand, by the so-called Philosophy 
 of the. Unconditioned, which in all ages has 
 sho^vn a tendency towards Pantheism, and 
 which, in one of its latest and most finished 
 manifestations, announces itself as the ex-
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 143 
 
 liibition of God as He is in His eternal 
 nature before creation ; and, on the other 
 hand, by the limitations and conditions to 
 which our own personality is subject, and 
 which, as we have pointed out in tlie earlier 
 part of this article, have, from the very 
 beginning of Christian theology, prevented 
 theologians from accepting the limited per- 
 sonality of man as an exact image and 
 counterpart of the unlimited personality of 
 God. These difficulties Mr. Mansel endea- 
 vours to meet in two ways. On the one 
 side, he maintains, in common with Sir W. 
 Hamilton, that the Philosophy of the Un- 
 conditioned, by reason of its own incon- 
 gruities and self-contradictions, has no claim 
 to be accepted as a competent witness in the 
 matter ; and on the other side, he maintains, 
 in. common with many theologians before
 
 1 44 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 him, that human personality cannot be as- 
 sumed as an exact cojoy of the Divine, but 
 only as that which is most nearly analogous 
 to it among finite things. But these two 
 positions, if admitted, involve a corresponding 
 practical conclusion as regards the criterion 
 of religious truth or falsehood. Were we 
 capable, either, on the one hand, of a clear 
 conception of the Unconditioned, or, on the 
 other, of a direct intuition of the Divine 
 Attributes as objects of consciousness, we 
 might be able to construct, deductively or 
 inductively, an exact science of Theology. 
 As it is, we are compelled to reason by 
 analogy ; and analogy furnishes only pro- 
 babilities, vaiying, it may be, from slight 
 presumptions up to moral certainties, but 
 whose weight, in any given case, can only be 
 determined by comparison with other evi-
 
 TJic Philosophy of the Conditioned. 145 
 
 dences. There are three distinct sources 
 from which we may form a judgment about 
 the ways of God — first, from our own moral 
 and intellectual consciousness, by which we 
 judge d priori of what God ought to do in a 
 given case, by determining what we should 
 think it wise or rio-ht for ourselves to do in a 
 similar case ; secondly, from the constitution 
 and course of nature, from which we may 
 learn by experience what God's providence 
 in certain cases actually is ; and thirdly, 
 from revelation, attested by its proper evi- 
 dences. Where these three agree in their 
 testimony (as in the great majority of cases 
 they do) we have the moral certainty which 
 results from the liarmony of all accessible 
 evidences : where they appear to differ, we 
 have no rio'lit at once to conclude that the 
 second or the third must give way to the 
 
 K
 
 146 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 first, and not vice versd ; because we have no 
 right to assume that the first alone is in- 
 f'aUible. In the author's own words : " The 
 lesson to be learnt from an examination of 
 the Limits of Religious Thought is not that 
 man's judgments are ivorthless in relation to 
 Divine things, but that they snefallihle: and 
 tlie probability of error in any particular case 
 can never be fairly estimated without giving 
 their full weight to all collateral considera- 
 tions. We are indeed bound to believe that 
 a Revelation given by God can never contain 
 anything that is really unwise or unrighteous ; 
 but we are not always capable of estimating 
 exactly the wisdom or righteousness of par- 
 ticular doctrines or precepts. And we are 
 bound to bear in mind that exact l)/ in ])ro- 
 portion to the strength of the remaining 
 evidence for the Divine origin of a religion, is
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 147 
 
 the iDrohahility that we may he mistaken in 
 supposing this or that portion of its contents 
 to he unworthy of God. Taken in con- 
 junction, the two arguments may confirm or 
 correct each other : taken singly and ab- 
 solutely, each may vitiate the result which 
 should follow from their joint application." "'' 
 
 In criticising the first part of this argument 
 — that which is directed ao'ainst the deductive 
 jDhilosophy of the Unconditioned — Mr. Mill 
 manifests the same Avant of acquaintance wdth 
 its meaning, and with the previous history of 
 the question, which he had before exhibited 
 in his attack on Sir W. Hamilton. He 
 begins by finding fault with the definition of 
 the Absolute, which Mr. Mansel (herein 
 departing, and purposely departing, from Sir 
 W, Hamilton's use of the term) defines as 
 
 * BamxHon Lectures, p. 156, 4tli edition.
 
 148 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 "that which exists in and by itself, having 
 no necessary relation to any other Being." 
 On this, Mr. Mill remarks : '' The first words 
 of his definition would serve for the descrip- 
 tion of a Noumenon ; but Mr. Mansel's 
 Absolute is only meant to denote one Being, 
 identified with God, and God is not the only 
 Noumenon." The description of a Nou- 
 menon ! This is almost equal to the 
 discovery of a Noumenon Space. Does Mr. 
 Mill really suppose that all noumena are self- 
 existent % A noumenon (in the sense in 
 which we suppose Mr. Mill to understand 
 the term, for it has different meanings in 
 different philosophies) implies an existence 
 out of relation to the human mind."" But is 
 
 * strictly speaking, the temi noumenon, as meaning that which 
 can be apprehended only by the intellect, implies a relation to the 
 intellect apprehending it ; and in this sense to voovixevov is opposed 
 l)y Plato to Tb opufievov — the object of intellect to the object cf
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 149 
 
 this the same as being out of all relation 
 whatever, as existing '^ in and by itself ? " 
 Does Mr. Mill mean to say that a creature, 
 whether perceived by us or not, has no rela- 
 tion to its Creator ? But Mr. Mill, as we 
 have seen before, is not much at home when 
 he 2:ets amono" ^^noumena." AVe must pro- 
 ceed to his criticism of the second part of the 
 definition, — " having no necessary relation to 
 
 sight. But as tlie intellect was supposed to take cognisance of 
 things as they are, in opposition to the sensitive perception of 
 things as they appear, the term noiirnenon hecame synonpnous 
 with ihiiig in itself {to ov i:ad' avro). And this meaning is retained 
 in the Kantian philosophy, in which the noumenon is identical 
 with the Ding an sick. But as Kant denied to the human intellect 
 any immediate intuition of things as they are (though such an 
 intuition may be possible to a superhuman intellect), hence the 
 term noumenon in the Kantian philosophy is opposed to all of 
 wliich the human intellect can take positive cognisance. Hamilton, 
 in this respect, agrees with Kant. But neither Kant nor Hamilton, 
 in opposing the thing in itself to the ijhcnomenon, meant to imply 
 that the former is necessarily self-existent, and therefore uncreated.
 
 15'^ The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 any other being." Of these words he says, 
 that " they admit of two constructions. The 
 words in their natural sense only mean, 
 capahle of cxiding out of relation to anything 
 else. The argument requires that they should 
 mean incapahle of existing in relation with 
 anything else." And why is this non-natural 
 sense to be forced upon very plain words ? 
 Because, says Mr. Mill, — 
 
 " In Avliat manner is a possible existence out of all rela- 
 tion, incompatible with tlie notion of a cause 1 Have not 
 causes a possible existence apart from their effects 1 "Would 
 the sun, for example, not exist if there were no earth or 
 planets for it to illuminate 1 INIr. Mansel seems to think 
 that what is capable of existing out of relation, cannot 
 possibly be conceived or known in relation. But this is 
 not so. . . . Freed from this confusion of ideas, Mr. IMan- 
 sel's argument resolves itself into this, — The same Being 
 cannot be thought by us both as Cause and as Absolute, 
 because a Cause as such is not Absolute, and Absolute, as 
 such, is not a Cause ; which is exactly as if he had said
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 1 5 1 
 
 that Newton cannot l)e tliouglit by us Lotli as an Engli.sli- 
 nian and as a matlicniatician, because an Englishman, as 
 such, is not a mallieniatician, nor a mathematician, as such, 
 an Englishman."— (P. i)2.) 
 
 The '■^ confusion of ideas " is entirely of 
 Mr, Mill's own making, and is owing to his 
 having mutilated the argument before criti- 
 cising it. The argument in its original form 
 consists of two parts ; the first intended to 
 show that the Absolute is not conceived rt.s 
 siicli in being conceived as a Cause ; the 
 second to show that the Absolute cannot be 
 conceived under different asj^ects at different 
 times — first as Absolute, and then as Cause. 
 It was the impossibility of this latter alterna- 
 tive which drove Cousin to the hypothesis of 
 a necessary causation from all eternity. Mr. 
 Mill entirely omits the latter part of the 
 argument, and treats the former part as if it
 
 I 5 2 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 were the whole. The part criticised by Mr. 
 Mill is intended to prove exactly what it 
 does prove, and no more ; namely, that a 
 cause as such is not the absolute, and that to 
 know a cause a.s' such is not to know the 
 absolute. We presume Mr. Mill himself 
 will admit that to know Newton as a mathe- 
 matician is not to know him as an Ensflish- 
 man. Whether he can be known separately 
 as both, and whether the Absolute in 
 this respect is a j^arallel case, depends on 
 another consideration, which Mr, Mill has 
 not noticed. The continuation of Mr. Mill's 
 criticism is equally confused. He says : — 
 
 " The whole of jMr. IMansel's argument for the incon- 
 ceivability of the Infinite and of the Absolute is one long 
 U/noTcdio elencJd. It has been pointed out in a former 
 cliapter that the words Absolute and Infinite have no real 
 meaning, unless we understand liv tliem tliat which is
 
 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 153 
 
 absolute or infinite in some given attribute ; as space is 
 called infinite, meaning that it is infinite in extension ; 
 and as God is termed infinite, in the sense of possessing 
 infinite poAver, and absolute in the sense of absolute good- 
 ness or knoAvledge. It has also been shown that Sir W. 
 Hamilton's arguments for the unknowableness of the Un- 
 conditioned do not prove that we cannot know an object 
 Avhich is absolute or infinite in some specific attribute, but 
 (inly that we cannot know an abstraction called ' The 
 Absolute' or ' The Infinite,' Avhich is supposed to have all 
 attributes at once."— (P. 93.) 
 
 The fallacy of this criticism, as regards 
 Sir W, Hamilton, has been already pointed 
 out : as regards Mr. Mansel, it is still more 
 glaring, inasmuch as that writer expressly 
 states that he uses the term absolute in a 
 different sense from that which Mr. Mill 
 attributes to Sir W. Hamilton. When Mr. 
 Mill charges Mr. Mansel with ^' undertaking 
 to prove the impossibility " of conceiving '^ a
 
 154 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 Being abtiolutely just or ahsoluteli/ wise"'"" 
 (i. c, as he supposes, perfectlij just or wise), 
 he actually forgets that he has just been 
 criticising Mr. Hansel's definition of the 
 Absolute, as something having a possible 
 existence " out of all relation." Will Mr. 
 Mill have the kindness to tell us what he 
 means by goodness and knowledge " out of 
 all relation ;" i.e., a goodness and knowledge 
 related to no object on which they can be 
 exercised ; a goodness which is good to 
 nothing, a knowledge which knows nothing ? 
 Mr. Mill had better be cautious in talking 
 about ig no ratio elencJii. 
 
 From the Absolute, Mr. Mill proceeds to 
 the Infinite ; and here he commits the same 
 mistake as before, treating a portion of an 
 argument as if it were the whole, and citing 
 
 * Examination, p. 95.
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 1 5 5 
 
 a portion intended to prove one point as if it 
 were intended to prove another. He cites a 
 passage from Mr. Mansel, in which it is said 
 that ^^ tlie Infinite, if it is to be conceived at 
 all, must be conceived as potentially every- 
 thing and actually nothing ; for if there is 
 anything in general which it cannot become, 
 it is thereby limited ; and if there is any- 
 thing 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 unrealised 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,
 
 156 TJic Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 and discerned as an object of consciousness." 
 On this passage Mr. Mill remarks, " Can a 
 writer be serious who bids us conjure up a 
 concejDtion of something which possesses infi- 
 nitely all conflicting attributes, and because 
 we cannot do this without contradiction, 
 would have us believe that there is a con- 
 tradiction in the idea of infinite goodness or 
 infinite wisdom % " The answer to this criti- 
 cism is very simple. The argument is not 
 employed for the purpose which Mr. Mill 
 supposes. It is employed to show that the 
 metaphysical notion of the absolute-infinite, 
 as the sum, potential or actual, of all possible 
 existence, is inconceivable under the laws of 
 human consciousness ; and thus that the 
 absolutely first existence, related to nothing 
 and limited by nothing, the ens realissirmiHR 
 of the older philosophers, the inire being of
 
 The PJiilosopJiy of the Conditioned. 157 
 
 the Hegelians, cannot be attained as a start- 
 ing-point from which to deduce all relative 
 and derived existence. How far the empi- 
 rical conception of certain mental attributes, 
 such as goodness or wisdom, derived in the 
 first instance from our ow^n personal con- 
 sciousness, can be positively conceived as ex- 
 tended to infinity, is considered in a separate 
 argument, which Mr. Mill does not notice. 
 
 Mr. Mill continues, " Instead of ' the In- 
 finite,' substitute ^ an infinitely good Being ' 
 \i. c, substitute what is not intended], and 
 Mr. Mansel's aro^ument reads thus : — 'If 
 there is anything which an infinitely good 
 Being- cannot become^ — if he cannot become 
 bad — that is a limitation, and the goodness 
 cannot be infinite. If there is anything 
 which an infinitely good Being actually is 
 (namely, good), he is excluded from being
 
 158 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 any otlier thing, as being wise or powerful.' " 
 To the first part of this objection we reply 
 by simply asking, " Is becoming bad a 
 ' higher perfection ? ' " To the second part 
 we reply by Mr. Mill's favourite mode of 
 reasoning — a parallel case. A writer asserts 
 that a creature which is a horse is thereby 
 excluded from being a dog ; and that^ in so 
 far as it has the nature of a horse, it has not 
 the nature of a dog. '' What !" exclaims Mr. 
 Mill, " is it not the nature of a dog to have 
 four legs ? and does the man mean to say 
 that a horse has not four legs ?" We ven- 
 ture respectfully to ask Mr. Mill whether he 
 supposes that being wise is being " a thing," 
 and being good is being another "thing ?" 
 
 But, seriously, it is much to be wished 
 that when a writer like Mr. Mill undertakes 
 to discuss philosophical questions, he should
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 159 
 
 acquire some slight acquaintance with tlie 
 history of the questions discussed. Had this 
 been done by our critic in the present case, 
 it might possibly have occurred to him to 
 doubt whether a doctrine supported by philo- 
 sophers of such different schools of thought 
 as Sj^inoza, Malebranche, Wolf, Kant, Schel- 
 ling, could be quite such a piece of trans- 
 parent nonsense as he supposes it to be. 
 All these writers are cited in Mr. Hansel's 
 note, as maintaining the theory that the 
 Absolute is the ens realissimum, or sum of 
 all existence ; and their names might have 
 saved Mr. Mill from the absurdity of sup- 
 posing that by this expression was meant 
 something " absolutely good and absolutely 
 bad ; absolutely wise and absolutely stupid ; 
 and so forth." The real meaning of the 
 expression has been already sufficiently ex-
 
 i6o The Philosophy of tlic Conditioned. 
 
 plained in our earlier remarks. The problem 
 of the Philosophy of the Unconditioned, as 
 sketched by Plato and generally adopted by 
 subsequent philosophers, is, as we have seen, 
 to ascend up to the first principle of all 
 things, and thence to deduce, as from their 
 cause, all dependent and derived existences. 
 The Unconditioned, as the one first principle, 
 nmst necessarily contain in itself, potentially 
 or actually, all that is derived from it, and 
 thus must comprehend, in embryo or in 
 development, the sum of all existence. To 
 reconcile this conclusion with the phenomenal 
 existence of evil and imperfection, is the 
 difficulty with which philosophy has had to 
 struggle ever since j^bilosophy began. The 
 Manichean, by referring evil to an inde- 
 pendent cause, denies the existence of an 
 absolute first principle at all ; the Leib
 
 TJie Philosophy of tJic Conditioned. 1 6 1 
 
 nitzian, with his hypothesis of the best 
 possible world, virtually sets bounds to the 
 Divine omnipotence : the Pantheist identifies 
 God with all actual existence, and either 
 denies the real existence of evil at all, or 
 merges the distinction between evil and good 
 in some hiofher indifference. All these con- 
 elusions may be alike untenable, but all 
 alike testify to the existence of the problem, 
 and to the vast though unsuccessful efforts 
 which man's reason has made to solve it. 
 
 The reader may now, perhaps, understand 
 the reason of an assertion which Mr. Mill 
 regards as supremely absurd,— namely, that 
 we must believe in the existence of an abso- 
 lute and infinite Being, though unable to 
 conceive the nature of such a Being, To 
 believe in such a Being, is simply to believe 
 that God made the world : to declare the 
 
 L
 
 i62 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 nature of sucli a Being inconceivable, is 
 simply to say that we do not know how the 
 world was made. If we believe that God 
 made the world, we must believe that there 
 was a time when the world was not, and 
 when God alone existed, out of relation to 
 any other being. But the mode of that sole 
 existence we are unable to conceive, nor in 
 what manner the first act took place by 
 which the absolute and self-existent gave 
 existence to the relative and dependent. 
 ^'' The contradictions," says Mr. Mill, " which 
 Mr. Mansel asserts to be involved in the 
 notions, do not follow from an imperfect 
 mode of apprehending the Infinite and the 
 Absolute, but lie in the definitions of them, 
 in the meaninsr of the words themselves." 
 They do no such thing : the meaning of the 
 words is perfectly intelligible, and is exactly
 
 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 163 
 
 what is expressed by their definitions : tlie 
 contradictions arise from the attempt to 
 combine the attributes expressed by the 
 words in one representation with others, so 
 as to form a positive object of consciousness. 
 Where is the incongruity of saying, *' I 
 believe that a being exists possessing certain 
 attributes, though I am unable in my present 
 state of knowledge to conceive the manner of 
 that existence ?" Mr. Mill, at all events, is 
 the last man in the world who has any right 
 to complain of such a distinction — Mr, Mill, 
 who considers it not incredible that in some 
 part of the universe two straight lines may 
 enclose a space, or two and two make five ; 
 though he is compelled to allow that under 
 our present laws of thought, or, if he pleases, 
 of association, we are unable to conceive how 
 these tilings can be.
 
 i64 TIlc Philosophy of the Condiiio7icd. 
 
 It is wearisome work to wade through this 
 mass of misconceptions ; yet we must entreat 
 the reader's j)atience a httle longer, while we 
 say a few words in conclusion on perhaps the 
 greatest misconception of all — though that is 
 bold language to use with regard to Mr, 
 Mill's metaphysics,— at any rate, the one 
 which he expresses in the most vehement 
 lansi-uagfe. Mr, Mansel, as we have said, 
 asserts, as many others have asserted before 
 him, that the relation between the com- 
 municable attributes of God and the corre- 
 sponding attributes of man is one not of 
 identity, but of analogy ; that is to say, that 
 the Divine attributes have the same relation 
 to the Divine nature that the human attri- 
 butes have to human nature. Thus, for 
 example, there is a Divine justice and there 
 is a human justice ; but God is just as the
 
 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 165 
 
 Creator and Governor of the world, having 
 unHmited authority over all His creatures 
 and unlimited jurisdiction oyer all their acts ; 
 and man is just in certain special relations, 
 as having authority over some persons and 
 some acts only, so far as is required for the 
 needs of human society. So, again, there is 
 a Divine mercy and there is a human mercy ; 
 but God is merciful in such a manner as is 
 fitting compatibly with the righteous govern- 
 ment of the universe ; and man is merciful 
 in a certain limited range, the exercise of 
 the attribute being guided by considerations 
 affecting the welfare of society or of indi- 
 viduals. Or to take a more general case : 
 Man has in himself a rule of rio-ht and 
 wrong, implying subjection to the authority 
 of a superior (for conscience has authority 
 only as reflecting the law of God) ; while
 
 1 66 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 God has ill Himself a rule of right and 
 wrong, implying no higher authority, and 
 determined absolutely by His own nature. 
 The case is the same when we look at 
 moral attributes, not externally, in their 
 active manifestations, but internally, in their 
 psychological constitution. If we do not 
 attribute to God the same complex mental 
 constitution of reason, passion, and wdll, the 
 same relation to motives and inducements, 
 the same deliberation and choice of alterna- 
 tives, the same temporal succession of facts 
 in consciousness, which we ascribe to man, — 
 it will follow that those psychological rela- 
 tions between reason, will, and desire, which 
 are implied in the conception of human 
 action, cannot represent the Divine excel- 
 lences in themselves, but can only illustrate 
 them by analogies from finite things. And
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 167 
 
 if man is liable to error in judging of the 
 conduct of his fellow -men, in j^roportion 
 as he is unable to place himself in their 
 position, or to realise to himself their modes 
 of thought and principles of action — if the 
 child, for instance, is liable to error in 
 judging the actions of the man, — or the 
 savage of the civilised man, — surely there 
 is far more room for error in men's judgment 
 of the ways of God, in proportion as the 
 difference between God and man is greater 
 than the difference between a man and a 
 child. 
 
 This doctrine elicits from Mr. Mill the fol- 
 lowing extraordinary outburst of rhetoric : — 
 
 " If, instead of tlie glad tidings that there exists a Being 
 in whom all the excellences which the highest human 
 mind can conceive, exist in a degree inconceivable to us, I 
 am informed that the world is ruled by a being whose
 
 1 68 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 attributes are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn, 
 nor what are the principles of his government, excejjt that 
 ' the liighest human morality which we are capable of con- 
 ceiving ' does not sanction them ; convince me of it, and I 
 will bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I 
 must believe this, and at the same time call tliis being by 
 the names which express and affirm the liighest hiiman 
 morality, I say in plain terms that I will not. Whatever 
 power such a being may have over me, there is one thing 
 which he shall not do : he shall not compel me to worship 
 him. I -v^dll call no beuig good, who is not Avhat I mean 
 when I a]iply that epithet to my fellow-creatures ; and if 
 such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling 
 liim, to hell I will go."— (P. 103.) 
 
 We will not pause to comment on the 
 temper and taste of this declamation ; we will 
 simply ask whether Mr. Mill really supposes 
 the word good to lose all community of mean- 
 ing, when it is applied, as it constantly is, 
 to different persons among our "fellow- 
 creatures," with express reference to their
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 1 69 
 
 different duties and different qualifications for 
 performing tlieni ? The duties of a father are 
 not the same as those of a son ; is the word 
 therefore wholly equivocal when we speak 
 of one person as a good father, and another 
 as a good son ? Nay, when we speak gene- 
 rally of a man as good, has not the epithet a 
 tacit reference to human nature and human 
 duties ? and yet is there no community of 
 meaning when the same epithet is applied to 
 
 other creatures ? 'H aperi] irpo? to epyov TO 
 
 oiKelov^ — the goodness of any being whatever 
 has relation to the nature and office of that 
 being. We may therefore test Mr. Mill's 
 declamation by a parallel case. A wise and 
 experienced father addresses a young and 
 inexperienced son: *^ My son/' he says, "there 
 may be some of my actions which do not 
 seem to you to be wise or good, or such as
 
 1 70 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 you would do in my place. Remember, 
 however, that your duties are different from 
 mine ; that your knowledge of my duties is 
 very imperfect ; and that there may be 
 things which you cannot now see to be wise 
 and good, l)ut which you may hereafter 
 discover to be so." '^ Father," says the son, 
 " your principles of action are not the same 
 as mine ; the highest morality which I can 
 conceive at present does not sanction them ; 
 and as for believing that you are good in 
 anything of which I do not plainly see the 
 goodness," — We will not repeat Mr. Mill's 
 alternative ; we will only ask whether it is 
 not just possible that there may be as much 
 difference between man and God as there is 
 between a child and his father ? 
 
 This declamation is followed by a sneer, 
 which is worth quoting, not on its own
 
 The PJiilosophy of the Conditioned. 1 7 i 
 
 account, but as an evidence of the generosity 
 with which Mr. Mill deals with the supposed 
 motives of his antagonists, and of the ac- 
 curacy of his acquaintance with the subject 
 discussed. He says : — 
 
 " It is worthy of remark, that the douljt whether words 
 api^lied to Gotl liave their lumian signification, is only felt 
 when the words relate to liis moral attributes ; it is never 
 heard of with regard to his power. We are never told 
 that God's omnipotence must not be supposed to mean an 
 infinite degree of the power we know in man and nature, 
 and tliat perhaps it does not mean that he is able to kill 
 us, or consign us to eternal flames. The Divine Power is 
 always interpreted in a completely himian signification ; 
 but the Divine Goodness and Justice must be miderstood 
 to be such only in an imintelligible sense. Is it unfair to 
 surmise that this is because those who speak in the name 
 of God, have need of the human conception of his poAver, 
 since an idea which can overawe and enforce obedience 
 must addi-ess itself to real feelings ; but are content that 
 his goodness should lie conceived only as sometliing incon- 
 ceivable, because they are so often rerpiired to teach doc-
 
 1 7 - The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 trines respecting him which cunllict irrccftncihiljly witli all 
 goodness that we can conceive?" — (P. 104.) 
 
 On the latter part of this paragraph we 
 will not attempt to comment. But as re- 
 gards the former part, we meet Mr. Mill's 
 confident assertion with a direct denial, and 
 take the opportunity of informing him that 
 the conception of infinite Power has sug- 
 gested the same difficulties, and has been 
 discussed by philosophers and theologians in 
 the same manner, as those of infinite Wisdom 
 and infinite Goodness. Has Mr. Mill never 
 heard of such questions as. Whether Omni- 
 potence can reverse the past ?— Whether 
 God can do that which He does not will to 
 do ? — Whether God's perfect foreknowledge 
 is compatible with his own perfect liberty ? — 
 Whether God could have made a better 
 world than the existing one ? Nay, has not
 
 TJic Philosophy of the Conditioned. 173 
 
 our critic, in this very chapter, been arguing 
 against Mr. Mansel on the question, whether 
 the Absolute can be conceived as a Cause 
 acting in time : and what is this but a form 
 of the question, whether power, when predi- 
 cated of God is exactly the same thing as 
 power when predicated of man ? Or why 
 has it been said that creation ex niliilo — an 
 absolutely first act of causation, is incon- 
 ceivable by us, but from the impossibility of 
 finding in human power an exact type of 
 Divine power ? To attribute discreditable 
 motives to an o|)ponent, even to account for 
 unquestionable facts, is usually considered as 
 an abuse of criticism. What shall we say 
 when the facts are fictitious as well as the 
 motives ? With regard to Mr. Mansel, the 
 only person who is included by name in this 
 accusation, it is " worthy of remark," that the
 
 174 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 earliest mention of the obnoxious theory in 
 his writings occurs in connection with a 
 difficulty relating solely to the conception 
 of infinite power, and not at all to the moral 
 attributes of God.'" 
 
 Mr. Mill concludes this chapter with 
 another instance of that ignoratio elenchi 
 which has been so abundantly manifested 
 throughout his previous criticisms. His op- 
 ponent, he allows, ''would and does admit 
 that the qualities as conceived by us bear 
 .some likeness to the justice and goodness 
 which belong to God, since man was made 
 in God's image." But he considers that 
 this "semi-concession" ''destroys the whole 
 fabric" of Mr. Mansel's argument. "The 
 Divine goodness," he says, "which is said to 
 be a different thing from human goodness, 
 
 * See Prolegmne'tut Logica, p. 77 (2nd ed., p. 85.)
 
 The PhilosopJiy of tJic Conditioned. 175 
 
 but of wliicli tlic liuinan conception of good- 
 ness is some imperfect reflexion or resem- 
 blance, does it agree with what men call 
 goodness in the essence of the quality — in 
 what constitutes it goodness ? If it does, the 
 'Rationalists' are right; it is not illicit to 
 reason from the one to the other. If not, the 
 divine attribute, whatever else it may be, is 
 not goodness, and ought not to be called by 
 the name." Now the question really at issue 
 is not whether the " Rationalist" argument is 
 licit or illicit, but whether, in its lawful use, 
 it is to be regarded as infallible or fallible. 
 We have already quoted a portion of Mr. 
 Hansel's language on this point ; we will now 
 quote two more passages, which, without any 
 comment, will sufficiently show how utterly 
 Mr. Mill has mistaken the purport of the argu- 
 ment which he has undertaken to examine.
 
 176 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 *' We do not certainly Icnow tlie exact nature and opera- 
 tion of tlie moral attributes of God : we can but infer and 
 conjecture from wliat we know of the moral attributes of 
 man: and the analogy between tlie Finite and the Infinite 
 can never be so perfect as to preclude all possibility of 
 error in the process. But the possibility becomes almost 
 a certainty, when any one human faculty is elevated by 
 itself into an authoritative criterion of religious truth, 
 without regard to those collateral evidences by which its 
 decisions may be modified and corrected." * . . . " Beyond 
 question, every doubt which our reason may suggest in 
 matters of religion is entitled to its due place in the 
 examination of the evidences of religion ; if we Avill treat 
 it as a part only, and not the whole ; if we will not insist 
 on a positive solution of that wliich, it may be, is given us 
 for another purpose than to be solved. It is reasonable to 
 believe that, in matters of belief as well as of practice, God 
 has not thought fit to anniliilate the free will of man, but 
 has permitted specidative difficixlties to exist as the trial 
 and the discipline of sharp and subtle intellects, as He has 
 permitted moral temptations to form the trial and the dis- 
 cipline of strong and eager passions. . . . "We do not 
 
 * Bampton Lectures, p. 157, Fourth Edition.
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 I i 
 
 doubt that the conditions of our moral trial tend towards 
 good, and not towards evil j that human nature, even iu 
 its faUen state, bears traces of the image of its Maker, and 
 is fitted to be an instrument in His moral government. 
 And we believe this, notwithstanding the existence of pas- 
 sions and appetites which, isolated and imcontroUed, 
 appear to lead in an ojijposite direction. Is it tlien more 
 reasonaT)le to deny that a system of revealed religion, 
 whose unquestionable tendency as a whole is to promote 
 the glory of God and the welfare of mankind, can have 
 13roceeded from the same Author, merely because we may 
 be unable to detect the same character in some of its 
 minuter features, viewed aj)art from the system to which 
 they belong ?" * 
 
 Surely this is very different from de- 
 nouncing all reasoning from human goodness 
 to Divine as '^ illicit." To take a parallel case. 
 The manufacture of gunpowder is a dangerous 
 process, and, if carried on without due pre- 
 cautions, is very likely to lead to disastrous 
 
 * Bamjyton Lectures, p. 166, Fourth Edition. 
 M
 
 178 The Philosophy of the Conditioned, 
 
 consequences. Surely it is one thing to point 
 out what precautions are necessary, and what 
 evils are to be apprehended from the neglect 
 of them, and another to forbid the manu- 
 facture altogether. Mr. Mill does not seem 
 to see the difference. 
 
 We have now considered in detail all that 
 part of Mr. Mill's book which is devoted to 
 the examination of Sir W. Hamilton's chief 
 and most characteristic doctrines — those 
 which constitute the Philosophy of the Con- 
 ditioned. The remainder of the work, which 
 deals chiefly with subordinate questions of 
 psychology and logic, contains much from 
 which we widely dissent, but which we 
 cannot at present submit to a special exami- 
 nation. Nor is it necessary, so far as Sir W. 
 Hamilton's reputation is concerned, that we 
 should do so. If the Philosophy of the Con-
 
 The Philosophy of the CoJiditioncd. 1 79 
 
 ditioned is really nothing better than the mass 
 of crudities and blunders which Mr. Mill 
 supposes it to be, the warmest admirers of 
 Hamilton will do little in his behalf, even 
 should they succeed in vindicating 'some of 
 the minor details of his teaching. If, on the 
 other hand, it can be shown, as we have 
 attempted to show, that Mr. Mill is utterly 
 incapable of dealing with Hamilton's philo- 
 sophy in its higher branches, his readers may 
 be left to judge for themselves whether he is 
 impliicitly to be trusted as regards the lower. 
 In point of fact, they will do Mr. Mill no 
 injustice, if they regard the above specimens 
 as samples of his entire criticism. We gladly 
 except^ as of a far higher order, those chap- 
 ters in which he is content with statinof his 
 own views ; but in the perpetual baiting of 
 Sir W. Hamilton, which occupies the greater
 
 i8o TJie Philosophy of tJic Conditioned. 
 
 part of the volume, we recognise, in general, 
 the same captiousness and the same incompe- 
 tence which we have so often had occasion to 
 point out in the course of our previous re- 
 marks. 
 
 It is, we confess, an un|)leasant and an 
 invidious task, to pick to pieces, bit by bit, 
 the work of an author of high reputation. 
 But Mr. Mill has chosen to yoX the question 
 on this issue, and he has left those who 
 dissent from him no alternative but to 
 follow his example. He has tasked all the 
 resources of minute criticism to destroy piece- 
 meal the reputation of one who has hitherto 
 borne an honoured name in philosophy : he 
 has no right to complain if the same measure 
 is meted to himself : — 
 
 " Neque enim lex sequior ulla 
 Quani necis artifices arte perire sua."
 
 The Philosophy of tJic Conditmicd. 1 8 1 
 
 But it is not so mucli the justice as the 
 necessity of the case which we w^ould plead 
 as our excuse. Mr. Mill's method of criti- 
 cism has reduced the question to a very 
 narrow compass. Either Sir W, Hamilton, 
 instead of being a great philosopher, is 
 the veriest blunderer that ever put pen to 
 paper, or the blunders are Mr. Mill's own. 
 To those who accept the first of these 
 alternatives it must always remain a marvel 
 how Sir W. Hamilton could ever have 
 acquired that reputation which compels even 
 his critic to admit that '■'■ he alone, of our 
 metaphysicians of this and the preceding 
 generation, has acquired, merely as such, 
 an European celebrity;" how he could have 
 been designated by his illustrious opponent, 
 Cousin, as the " greatest critic of our age," 
 or described by the learned Brandis as
 
 1 82 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 "almost unparalleled in the profound know- 
 ledge of ancient and modern philosophy," 
 The marvel may perhaps disappear, should 
 it be the case, as we believe it to be, that 
 the second alternative is the true one. 
 
 But even in this case, it should be borne 
 in mind that the blow will by no means fall 
 on Mr. Mill with the same weight with 
 which he designed it to fall on the object of 
 his criticism. Sir W. Hamilton had devoted 
 his whole life to the study of metaphysics ; 
 he was probably more deeply read in that 
 study than any of his contemporaries ; and 
 if all liis reading could produce nothing 
 better than the confusion and self-contradic- 
 tion which Mr. Mill imputes to him, the 
 result w^ould be pitiable indeed. Mr, Mill, 
 on the other hand, we strongly susj)ect, 
 despises metaphysics too much to be at the
 
 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 183 
 
 pains of studying them at all, and seems to 
 think that a critic is duly equipped for his 
 task with that amount of knowledge which, 
 like Dogberry's reading and writing, " comes 
 by nature." His work has a superficial 
 cleverness which, together with the author's 
 previous reputation, will insure it a certain 
 kind of popularity ; but we venture to pre- 
 dict that its estimation by its readers will be 
 in the inverse ratio to their knowledge of the 
 subject. But Mr. Mill's general reputation 
 rests on grounds quite distinct from his per- 
 formances in metaphysics ; and though we 
 could hardly name one of his writings from 
 whose main principles we do not dissent, 
 there is hardly one which is not better fitted 
 to sustain his character as a thinker than 
 this last, in which the fatal charms of the 
 goddess Necessity seem to have betrayed
 
 184 The Philosophy of the Conditioned. 
 
 her champion into an unusual excess of 
 polemical zeal, coupled, it nmst be added, 
 with an unusual deficiency of philosophical 
 knowledge.
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 It was not till after the preceding pages had been 
 sent to press that I became acquainted with a little 
 work recently published under the title of The 
 Battle of the two Philosophies, hy an Inquirer. The 
 author appears to have been a personal pupil of 
 Sir W. Hamilton's, as well as a diligent student 
 of his ^^Titings. At all events, he has " inquired" 
 to some purpose, and obtained a far more intel- 
 ligent knowledge of Hamilton's system than is 
 exhibited by the majority of recent critics. It is 
 gratifying to find many of my remarks confirmed 
 by the concurrent testimony of so competent a 
 witness. The followinsj would have been noticed
 
 1 86 Postscript. 
 
 in their proper places had 1 been sooner ac(|uainie(l 
 with them. 
 
 Of the popular confusion between the infinite 
 and the indefinite, noticed above, pp. 50, 112, "An 
 In(j^uirer" ol)serves : — 
 
 "If we could realise in thought infinite space, 
 that conception would be a perfectly definite one ; 
 but the notion that is here offered us in its place, 
 though it may be real, is certainly not definite ; 
 it is merely the conception of an indefinite ex- 
 tension In truth, when we strive 
 
 to think of infinite space, the nearest approach 
 we can make to it is this notion of an indefinite 
 space, which Mr. Mill has substituted for it. But 
 these two conceptions are not only verbally, they 
 are really wholly distinct. An indefinite space is 
 a space of the extent of which we tliink vaguely, 
 without knowinif or without thinking where its 
 boundaries are. Infinite space has certainly, and 
 quite distinctly, no boundaries anywhere." — (I'p. 
 18-20.) 
 
 On Mr. Mill's strange distinction between the 
 Divine Attributes, as some infinite and others ab-
 
 Postscript. 187 
 
 solute, tliu author's remarks are substantially in agree- 
 ment with what has been said above on pp. 105-6. 
 
 "Mr. INIill argues that all the attributes of God 
 cannot be infinite ; Init tliat some, as power, may 
 be infinite ; and some, as goodness and knowledge, 
 must be absolute, because neither can knowledge be 
 more than complete, nor goodness more than per- 
 fect. When we know all there is to be known, 
 he says, knowledge has attained its utmost limit, 
 fjut this is merely begging the whole question. If 
 there be an Infinite Being, He cannot know all 
 there is to be known unless He know Himself; and 
 adequately to know what is infinite is to have in- 
 finite knowledge. The same thing would be true 
 if there could be a Being whose power and dura- 
 tion only were infinite. ' The will,' he adds, ' is 
 either entirely right, or wrong in different degrees: 
 do%\'nwards there are as many gradations as we 
 choose to distinguish ; but upwards there is an 
 ideal limit. Goodness can be imagined complete, — 
 such that there can be no greater goodness beyond 
 it.' . . . But a Being of infinite power and 
 finite goodness Avould not be perfectly good, be-
 
 1 88 Postscript. 
 
 cause His power M-oukl not Ijo M'liolly, Ijut only in 
 X)art directed by His goodness. Nay, as that which 
 is finite hears no proportion whatever to what is in- 
 finite: as, how^ever great it he ahsohitely, it is still 
 infinitely less than infinity, such a Being would 
 he partly good and yet infinitely evil, which is 
 absurd in reason and impossible in fact." — (Pp. 
 24, 25.) 
 
 The following estimate of j\Ir. Mill's merits as a 
 metaphysician coincides with that which, contrary^ 
 to my expectation, I found forced upon myself after 
 a careful examination of his book. — (See above. 
 Pp. 62, 182.) 
 
 " We cannot but think that Mr. Mill in tliis, his 
 first work in pure metaphysics, has disappointed 
 just expectation. In leaving the fields of practical 
 philosophy, he seems to have left his genius Ijehind 
 him. Even the peculiar 'cunning of his right hand' 
 — even his unexcelled logical power avails him 
 little, so continually does he fail to see distinctly 
 the conception with which he is fencing. . . . 
 As long as he is applying given principles to the 
 solution of practical questions ; as long as he has
 
 Postscript. 189 
 
 to do with tlic process of an argument, he proves 
 himself a most able instructor and guide. But 
 when he has to grapple with a metaphysical pro- 
 blem, it almost invarial)ly arrives that the central, 
 the metaphysical difficulty, escapes him." — (Pp. 78- 
 80.) 
 
 MriR AND PATEESOX, PRIXTEKS, EDIXBURGH.
 
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