Chapter VII: Part III (2)

On page eighty-four, in speaking "of the atheistic alternative," Mr. Mansel makes use of the following language: "A limit is itself a relation; and to conceive a limit as such, is virtually to acknowledge the existence of a correlative on the other side of it." Upon reading this sentence, some sensuous form spontaneously appears in the Sense. Some object is conceived, and something outside it, that bounds it. But let the idea be once formed of a Being who possesses all limitation within himself, and for whom there is no "other side," nor any "correlative," and the difficulty vanishes. We do not seek to account for sensuous objects. It is pure Spirit whom we consider. We do not need to form a concept of "a first moment in time," or "a first unit of space," nor could we if we would. To do so would be for the faculty which forms concepts to transcend the very laws of its organization. What we need is, to see the fact that a Spirit is, who, possessing personality as form, and absoluteness and infinity as qualities, thereby contains all limits and the ground of all being in himself, and antithetical to whom is only negation.

From the ground thus attained there is seen to result, not the dreary Sahara of interminable contradictions, but the fair land of harmonious consistency. A Spirit, sole, personal, self-conscious, the absolute and infinite Person, is the Being we seek and have found; and upon such a Being the soul of man may rest with the unquestioning trust of an infant in its mother's arms. One cannot pass by unnoticed the beautiful spirit of religious reverence which shines through the closing paragraphs of this lecture. It is evident with what dissatisfaction the writer views the sterile puzzles of which he has been treating, and what a relief it is to turn from them to "the God who is 'gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil.'" The wonder is, that he did not receive that presentation which his devout spirit has made, as the truth--which it is--and say, "I will accept this as final. My definitions and deductions shall accord with this highest revelation. This shall be my standard of interpretation." Had he done so, far other, and, as it is believed, more satisfactory and truthful would have been the conclusions he would have given us.

In his third Lecture Mr. Mansel is occupied with an examination of the human nature, for the purpose, if possible, of finding "some explanation of the singular phenomenon of human thought," which he has just developed. At the threshold of the investigation the fact of consciousness appears, and he begins the statement of its conditions in the following language: "Now, in the first place, the very conception of Consciousness, in whatever mode it may be manifested, necessarily implies _distinction between one object and another_. To be conscious we must be conscious of something; and that something can only be known as that which it is, by being distinguished from that which it is not." In this statement Mr. Mansel unconsciously assumes as settled, the very question at issue; for, the position maintained by one class of writers is, that in certain of our mental operations, viz., in intuitions, the mind sees a simple truth, idea, first principle, as it is, in itself, and that there is no distinction in the act of knowledge. It is unquestionably true that, in the examination of objects on the Sense, and the conclusion of judgments in the Understanding, no object can come into consciousness without implying a "distinction between one object and another." But it is also evident that a first truth, to be known as such, must be intuited--seen as it is in itself; and so directly known to have the qualities of necessity and universality which constitute it a first truth. Of this fact Sir William Hamilton seems to have been aware, when he denied the actuality of the Reason,--perceiving, doubtless, that only on the ground of such a denial was his own theory tenable. But if it shall be admitted, as it would seem it must be, that men have necessary and universal convictions, then it must also be admitted that these convictions are not entertained by distinguishing them from other mental operations, but that they are seen of themselves to be true; and thus it appears that there are some modes of consciousness which do not imply the "distinction" claimed. The subsequent sentences seem capable of more than one interpretation. If the author means that "the Infinite" cannot be infinite without he is also finite, so that all distinction ceases, then his meaning is both pantheistic and contradictory; for the word infinite has no meaning, if it is not the opposite of finite, and to identify them is undoubtedly Pantheism. Or if he means "that the Infinite cannot be distinguished" as independent, from the Finite _as independent_, and thus, as possessing some quality with which it was not endowed by the infinite Person, then there can be no doubt of his correctness. But if, as would seem, his idea of infinity is that of amount, is such that it appears inconsistent, contradictory, for the infinite Person to retain his infinity, and still create beings who are really other than himself, and possessing, as quality, finiteness, which he cannot possess as quality, then is his idea of what infinity is wrong. Infinity is quality, and the capacity to thus create is essential to it. All that the Reason requires is, that the finite be created by and wholly dependent upon the infinite Person; then all the relations and conditions are only _improper_,--such as that Person has established, and which, therefore, in no way diminish his glory or detract from his fulness. When, then, Mr. Mansel says, "A consciousness of the Infinite, as such, thus necessarily involves a self-contradiction, for it implies the recognition, by limitation and difference, of that which can only be given as unlimited and indifferent," it is evident that he uses the term infinite to express the understanding-conception of unlimited amount, which is not relevant here, rather than the reason-idea of universality which is not contradictory to a real distinction between the Infinite and finite. There is also involved the unexpressed assumption that we have no knowledge except of the limited and different, or, in other words, that the Understanding is the highest faculty of the mind. It has already been abundantly shown that this is erroneous,--that the Reason knows its objects in themselves, as out of all relation, plurality, difference, or likeness. Dropping now the abstract term "the infinite," and using the concrete and proper form, we may say:

We are conscious of infinity, _i. e._ we are conscious that we see with the eye of Reason infinity as a simple, _a priori_ idea; and that it is quality of the Deity.

2. We are conscious of the infinite Person; in that we are conscious, that we see with the eye of Reason the complex _a priori_ idea of a perfect Person possessing independence and universality as qualities of his Self. But we are not conscious of him in that we exhaustively comprehend him. As is said elsewhere, we know that he is, and to a certain extent, but not wholly what he is.

In further discussing this question Mansel is guilty of another grave psychological error. He says, "Consciousness is essentially a limitation, for it is the determination to one actual out of many possible modifications." There is no truth in this sentence. Consciousness is not a limitation; it is not a determination; it is not a modification. It may be well to state here certain conclusions on this assertion, which will be brought out in the fuller discussion of it, when we come to speak of Mr. Spencer's book. Consciousness is _one_, and retains that oneness throughout all modifications. These occur in the unity as items of experience affect it. Doubtless Dr. Hickok's illustration is the best possible. Consciousness is the _light_ in which a spiritual person sees the modifications of himself, _i. e._ the activity of his faculties and capacities. Like Space, only in a different sphere, it is an illimitable indivisible unity, which is, that all limits may be in it--that all objects may come into it. If, then, only one modification--object--comes into it at a time, this is because the faculties which see in its light are thus organized;--the being to whom it belongs is partial; but there is nothing pertaining to consciousness _as such_, which constitutes a limit,--which could bar the infinite Person from seeing all things at once in its light. This Person, then, so far as known, must be known as an actual absolute, infinite Spirit, and hence no "thing"; and further as the originator and sustainer of all "_things_,"--which, though dependent on him, in no way take aught from him. He may be known also, as potentially everything, in the sense that all possible combinations, or forms of objects, must ever stand as ideals in his Reason; and he can, at his will, organize his power in accordance therewith. But he must also be known as free to create or not to create; and that the fact that many potential forms remain such, in no way detracts from his infinity.

Another of Mr. Mansel's positions involve conclusions which, we feel assured, he will utterly reject. He says, "If all thought is limitation,--if whatever we conceive is, by the very act of conception, regarded as finite,--the infinite, from a human point of view, is merely a name for the absence of those conditions under which thought is possible." "From a human point of view," and _we_, at least, can take no other, what follows? That the Deity _can have no thoughts_; cannot know what our thoughts are, or that we think. But three suppositions can be made. Either he has no thoughts, is destitute of an intellect; or his intellect is Universal Genius, and he sees all possible objects at once; or there is a faculty different in kind from and higher than the Reason, of which we have, can have, no knowledge. The first, though acknowledged by Hamilton in a passage elsewhere quoted, and logically following from the position taken by Mr. Mansel, is so abhorrent to the soul that it must be unhesitatingly rejected. The second is the position advocated in this treatise. The third is hinted at by Mr. Herbert Spencer. We reject this third, because the Reason affirms it to be impossible; and because, being unnecessary, by the law of parsimony it should not be allowed. To advocate a position of which, in the very terms of it, the intellect can have no possible shadow of knowledge, is, to say the least, no part of the work of a philosopher. "The condition of consciousness is" not "distinction" in the understanding-conception of that term. So consciousness is not a limitation, though all limits when cognized are seen in the light of consciousness. According to the philosophy we advocate, God is a particular being, and is so known; yet he is not known as "one thing out of many," but is known in himself, as being such and such, and yet being _unique_. When Mr. Mansel says, "In assuming the possibility of an infinite object of consciousness, I assume, therefore, that it is at the same time limited and unlimited," he evidently uses those terms with a signification pertinent only to the Understanding. He is thinking of _amount_ under the forms of Space and Time; and so his remark has no validity. He who thinks of God rightly, will think of him as the infinite and absolute spiritual Person; and will define infinity and absoluteness in accordance therewith.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the criticisms heretofore made, some points, held in common by the three writers named early in this work, have been, it may be, passed over unnoticed. This was done, because, being held in common, it was believed that an examination of them, as presented by the latest writer, would be most satisfactory. Therefore, what was peculiar in thought or expression to Sir Wm. Hamilton or Mr. Mansel, we have intended to notice when speaking of those writers. But where Mr. Spencer seems to present their very thought as his own, it has appeared better to remark upon it in his latest form of expression. Mr. Spencer also holds views peculiar to himself. These we shall examine in their place. And for convenience' sake, what we have to say will take the form of a running commentary upon those chapters entitled, "Ultimate Religious Ideas," "Ultimate Scientific Ideas," "The Relativity of all Knowledge," and "The Reconciliation." Before entering upon this, however, some general remarks will be pertinent.

1. Like his teachers, Mr. Spencer believes that the Understanding is the highest faculty of the human intellect. This is implied in the following sentence: "Those imbecilities of the understanding that disclose themselves when we try to answer the highest questions of objective science, subjective science proves to be necessitated by the laws of that understanding."--_First Principles_, p. 98.

His illustrations, also, are all, or nearly all, taken from sensuous objects. In speaking of the Universe, evidently the _material_ Universe is present to his mind. His questions refer to objects of sense, and he shows plainly enough that any attempt to answer them by the Sense or Understanding is futile. Hence he concludes that they cannot be answered. But those who "know of a surety," that man is more than an animal nature, containing a Sense and an Understanding; that he is also a spiritual person, having an _Eye_, the pure Reason, which can _see_ straight to the central Truth, with a clearness and in a light which dims and pales the noonday sun, know also that, and how, these difficulties, insoluble to the lower faculties, are, in this noble alembic, finally dissolved.

2. As Mr. Spencer follows his teachers in the psychology of man's faculties, so does he also in the use of terms. Like them, he employs only such terms as are pertinent to the Sense and Understanding. So also with them he is at fault, in that he raises questions which no Sense or Understanding could suggest even, questions whose very presence are decisive that a Pure Reason is organic in man; and then is guilty of applying to them terms entirely impertinent,--terms belonging only to those lower tribunals before which these questions can never come. For instance, he always employs the word "conceive" to express the effort of the mind in presenting to itself the subjects now under discussion. In some form of noun, verb, or adjective, this word seems to have rained upon his pages; while such terms as "infinite period," "infinitely divisible," "absolutely incompressible," "infinitesimal," and the like, dot them repeatedly. Let us revert, then, a moment to the positions attained in an earlier portion of this work. It was there found that the word conceive was _utterly irrelevant_ to any subject except to objects of Sense and the Understanding in its work of classifying them, or generalizing from them, so, also, with regard to the other terms quoted, it was found that they not only presented no object of thought to the mind, but that the words had no relation to each other, and could not properly be used together. For instance, infinite has no more relation to, and can no more qualify period, than the points of the compass are pertinent to, and can qualify the affections. The phrase, infinite period, is simply absurd, and so also are the others. The words infinite and absolute have nothing to do with amount of any sort. They can be pertinent only to God and his _a priori_ ideas. Many, perhaps most of the criticisms in detail we shall have to make, will be based on this single misuse of words; which yet grows naturally out of that denial and perversion of faculties which Mr. Spencer, in common with the other Limitist writers, has attempted. On the other hand, it is to be remembered, that, if we arrive at the truth at all, we must _intuit_ it; we must either see it as a simple _a priori_ idea, or as a logical deduction from such ideas.

3. A third, and graver error on Mr. Spencer's part is, that he goes on propounding his questions, and asserting that they are insoluble, apparently as unconscious as a sleeper in an enchanted castle that they have all been solved, or at least that the principles on which it would seem that they could be solved have been stated by a man of no mean ability,--Dr. Hickok,--and that until the proposed solutions are thoroughly analyzed and shown to be unsound, his own pages are idle. He implies that there is no cognition higher than a conception, when some very respectable writers have named intuitions as incomparably superior. He speaks of the Understanding as if it were without question the highest faculty of man's intellect, when no less a person than Coleridge said it would satisfy his life's labor to have introduced into English thinking the distinction between the Understanding, as "the faculty judging according to sense," and the Reason, as "the power of universal and necessary convictions," which, being such, must necessarily rank far above the other. And finally he uses the words and phrases above disallowed, and the faculties to which they belong, in an attempt to prove, by the citation of a few items in an experience, what had already been demonstrated by another in a process of as pure reasoning as Calculus. No one, it is believed, can master the volume heretofore alluded to, entitled "Rational Psychology," and so appreciate the _demonstration_ therein contained, of the utter incompetency of the Sense or Understanding to solve such questions as Mr. Spencer has raised by his incident of the partridge, (p. 69,) and the utter irrelevancy to them of the efforts of those faculties, without feeling how tame and unsatisfactory in comparison is the evidence drawn from a few facts in a sensuous experience. One cares not to see a half dozen proofs, more or less that a theory is fallacious who has learned that, and why, the theory _cannot_ be true. Let us now take up in order the chapters heretofore mentioned.

"ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS."

The summing up of certain reflections with which this chapter opens, concludes thus: "But that when our symbolic conceptions are such that no cumulative or indirect processes of thought can enable us to ascertain that there are corresponding actualities, nor any predictions be made whose fulfilment can prove this, then they are altogether vicious and illusive, and in no way distinguishable from pure fictions,"--p. 29. So far very good; but his use of it is utterly unsound. "And now to consider the bearings of this general truth on our immediate topic--Ultimate Religious Ideas." But this "general truth" has _no_ bearings upon "ultimate religious ideas"; how then can you consider them? _No_ ideas, and most of all religious ideas, are conceptions, or the results of conceptions--or are the products of "cumulative or indirect processes of thought." They are not results or products _at all_. They are organic, are the spontaneous presentation of what is inborn, and so must be directly seen to be known at all. Man might pile up "cumulative processes of thought" for unnumbered ages, and might form most exact conceptions of objects of Sense,--conceptions are not possible of others,--and he could never creep up to the least and faintest religious idea.

On the next page, speaking of "suppositions respecting the origin of the Universe," Mr. Spencer says, "The deeper question is, whether any one of them is even conceivable in the true sense of that word. Let us successively test them." This is not necessary. It has already been _demonstrated_ that a conception, or any effort of the Understanding, cannot touch, or have relation to such topics. But it does not follow, therefore, that no one of them is cognizable at all; which he implies. Take the abstract notion of self-existence, for example. No "vague symbolic conceptions," or any conception at all, of it _can be formed_. A conception is possible only "under relation, difference, and plurality." _This_ is a pure, simple idea, and so can only be known in itself by a seeing--an immediate intuition. It is seen by itself, as out of all relation. It is seen as simple, and so is learned by no difference. It is seen as a unit, and so out of all plurality. The discursive faculty cannot pass over it, because there are in it no various points upon which that faculty may fasten. It may, perhaps, better be expressed by the words pure independence. Again, it is _not_ properly "existence without a beginning," but rather, existence out of all relation to beginning; and so it is an idea, out of all relation to those faculties which are confined to objects that did begin. Because we can "by no mental effort" "form a conception of existence without a beginning," it does not follow that we cannot _see_ that a Being existing out of all relation to beginning _is_. "To this let us add" that the intuition of such a Being is a complete "explanation of the Universe," and does make it "easier to understand" "that it existed an hour ago, a day ago, a year ago"; for we see that this Being primarily is _out of all relation to time_, that there is no such thing as an "infinite period," the phrase being absurd; but that through all the procession of events which we call time he _is_; and that before that procession began--when there was no time, he was. Thus we see that all events are based upon Him who is independent; and that time, in our general use of it, is but the measure of what He produces. We arrive, then, at the conclusion that the Universe is not self-existent, not because self-existence cannot be object to the human mind, and be clearly seen to be an attribute of one Being, but because the Universe is primarily object to faculties in that mind, which cannot entertain such a notion at all; and because this notion is _seen_ to be a necessary idea in the province of that higher faculty which entertains as objects both the idea and the Being to whom it primarily belongs.

The theory that the Universe is self-existent is Pantheism, and not the theory that it is self-created, though this latter, in Mr. Spencer's definition of it, seems only a phase of the other. To say that "self-creation is potential existence passing into actual existence by some inherent necessity," is only to remove self-existence one step farther back, as he himself shows. Potential existence is either no existence at all, or it is positive existence. If it is no existence, then we have true self-creation; which is, that out of nothing, and with no cause, actual existence starts itself. This is not only unthinkable, but absurd. But if potential existence is positive, it needs to be accounted for as much as actual. While, then, there can be no doubt as to the validity of the conclusions to which Mr. Spencer arrives, respecting the entire incompetency of the hypotheses of self-existence and self-creation, to account for the Universe, the distinction made above between self-existence as a true and self-creation as a pseudo idea, and the fact that the true idea is a _reality_, should never be lost sight of. By failing to discriminate--as in the Understanding he could not do--between them, and by concluding both as objects alike impossible to the human intellect, and for the same reasons, he has also decided that the "commonly received or theistic hypothesis"--creation by external agency--is equally untenable. In his examination of this, he starts as usual with his ever-present, fallacious assumption, that this is a "conception"; that it can be, _is_ founded upon a "cumulative process of thought, or the fulfilment of predictions based on it." These words, phrases, and notions, are all irrelevant. It is not a conception, process, or prediction that we want; it is a _sight_. Hence, no assumptions have to be made or granted. No "proceedings of a human artificer" _can in the least degree_ "vaguely symbolize to us" the "method after which the Universe" was "shaped." This differed in _kind_ from all possible human methods, and had not one element in common with them.

Mr. Spencer's remarks at this point upon Space do not appear to be well grounded. "An immeasurable void"--Space--is not an entity, is _no_ thing, and therefore cannot "exist," neither is any explanation for it needed. His question, "how came it so?" takes, then, this form: How came immeasurable nothing to be nothing? Nothing needs no "explanation." It is only _some_ thing which must be accounted for. The theory of creation by external agency being, then, an adequate one to account for the Universe, supplies the following statement. That Being who is primarily out of all relation, produced, from himself, and by his immanent power, into nothing--Space, room, the condition of material existence,--something, matter and the Universe became. "The genesis of the universe" having thus been explained and seen to be "the result of external agency," we are ready to furnish for the question, "how came there to be an external agency?" that true answer, which we have already shadowed forth. That pure spiritual Person who is necessarily existent, or self-existent, _i. e._ who possess pure independence as an essential attribute, whose being is thus fixed, and is therefore without the province of power, is the external agency which is needed. This Person, differing in kind from the Universe, cannot be found in it, nor concluded from it, but can only be known by being seen, and can only be seen because man possesses the endowment of a spiritual _Eye_, like in kind to His own All-seeing eye, by which spiritual things may be discerned. This Person, being thus seen immediately, is known in a far more satisfactory mode than he could be by any generalizations of the Understanding, could he be represented in these at all. The knowledge of Him is, like His self, _immutable_. We KNOW that we stand on the eternal Rock. Our eye is illuminated with the unwavering Light which radiates from the throne of God. Nor is this any hallucination of the rhapsodist. It is the simple experience which every one enjoys who looks at pure truth in itself. It is the Pure Reason seeing, by an immediate intuition, God as pure spirit, revealed directly to itself. It is, then, because self-existence is a pure, simple idea, organic in man, and seen by him to be an attribute of God, that God is known to be the Creator of the Universe. Having attained to this truth, we readily see that the conclusions which Mr. Spencer states on pages 35, 36, as that "self-existence is rigorously inconceivable"; that the theistic hypothesis equally with the others is "literally unthinkable"; that "our conception of self-existence can be formed only by joining with it the notion of unlimited duration through past time"; so far as they imply our destitution of knowledge on these topics, are the opposite of the facts. We _see_, though we cannot "conceive," self-existence. The theistic hypothesis becomes, therefore, literally thinkable. We see, also, that unlimited duration is an absurdity; that duration must be limited; and that self-existence involves existence out of all relation to duration.

Mr. Spencer then turns to the nature of the Universe, and says: "We find ourselves on the one hand obliged to make certain assumptions, and yet, on the other hand, we find these assumptions cannot be represented in thought." Upon this it may be remarked:

1. What are here called assumptions are properly assertions, which man makes, and cannot help making, except he deny himself;--necessary convictions, first truths, first principles, _a priori_ ideas. They are organic, and so are the foundation of all knowledge. They are not results learned from lessons, but are _primary_, and conditional to an ability to learn. But supposing them to be assumptions, having, at most, no more groundwork than a vague guess, there devolves a labor which Mr. Spencer and his coadjutors have never attempted, and which, we are persuaded, they would find the most difficult of all, viz., to account for the fact of these assumptions. For the question is pertinent and urgent;

2. How came these assumptions to suggest themselves? Where, for instance, did the notion of self come from? Analyze the rocks, study plants and their growth, become familiar with animals and their habits, or exhaust the Sense in an examination of man, and one can find no notion of self. Yet the notion is, and is peculiar to man. How does it arise? Is it "created by the slow action of natural causes?" How comes it to belong, then, to the rudest aboriginal equally with the most civilized and cultivated? Was it "created" from nothing or from something? If from something, how came that something to be? We might ask, Does not the presentation of any phenomenon involve the actuality of a somewhat, in which that phenomenon inheres, and of a receptivity by which it is appreciated? Does not the fact of this assumption, as a mental phenomenon, involve the higher fact of some mental ground, some form, some capacity, which is both organic to the mind, and organized in the mind, in accordance with which the assumption is, and which determines what it must be? Or are we to believe that these assumptions are mere happenings, without law, and for which no reason can be assigned? Again we press the question, How came these assumptions to suggest themselves?

3. "These assumptions cannot be represented in thought." If "thought" is restricted to that mental operation of the Understanding by which it generalizes in accordance with the Sense, the statement is true. But if it is meant, as seems to be implied, that the notions expressed in these assumptions are not, cannot be, clearly and definitely known at all by the mind, then it is directly contrary to the truth. The ideas presented by the phrases are, as was seen above, clear and definite.

Since Mr. Spencer has quoted _in extenso_, and with entire approbation, what Mr. Mansel says respecting "the Cause, the Absolute, and the Infinite," we have placed the full examination of these topics in our remarks upon Mr. Mansel's writings, and shall set down only a few brief notes here.

Upon this topic Mr. Spencer admits that "we are obliged to suppose _some_ cause"; or, in other words, that the notion of cause is organic. Then we must "inevitably commit ourselves to the hypothesis of a First Cause." Then, this First Cause "must be infinite." Then, "it must be independent;" "or, to use the established word, it must be absolute." One would almost suppose that a _rational_ man penned these decisions, instead of one who denies that he has a _reason_. The illusion is quickly dispelled, however, by the objections he lifts out of the dingy ground-room of the Understanding. It is curious to observe in these pages a fact which we have noticed before, in speaking of Sir William Hamilton's works, viz.: how, on the same page, and in the same sentence, the workings of the Understanding and Reason will run along side by side, the former all the while befogging and hindering the latter. Mr. Spencer's conclusions which we have quoted, and his objections which we are to answer, are a striking exemplification of this. Frequently in his remarks he uses the words limited and unlimited, as synonymous with finite and infinite, when they are not so, and cannot be used interchangeably with propriety. The former belong wholly in the Sense and Understanding. The latter belong wholly in the Pure Reason. The former pertain to material objects, to mental images of them, or to number. The latter qualify only spiritual persons, and have no pertinence elsewhere. Limitation is the conception of an object _as bounded_. Illimitation is the conception of an object as without boundaries. Rigidly, it is a simple negation of boundaries, and gives nothing positive in the Concept. Finity or finiteness corresponds in the Reason to limitation in the Sense and Understanding. It does not refer to boundaries at all. It belongs only to created spiritual persons, and expresses the fact that they are partial, and must grow and learn. Only by its place in the antithesis does infinity correspond in the Reason to illimitation in the lower faculties. It is _positive_, and is that quality of the pure spirit which is otherwise known as _universality_. It expresses the idea of _all possible endowments in perfect harmony_. From his misuse of these terms Mr. Spencer is led to speak in an irrelevant manner upon the question, "Is the First Cause finite or infinite?" He uses words and treats the whole matter as if it were a question of material substance, which might be "bounded," with a "region surrounding its boundaries," and the like, which are as out of place as to say white love or yellow kindness. His methods of thought on these topics are also gravely erroneous. He attempts an analysis by the logical Understanding, where a synthesis by the Reason is required,--a synthesis which has already been given by our Creator to man as an original idea. It is not necessary to examine some limited thing, or all limited things, and wander around their boundaries to learn that the First Cause is infinite. We need to make no discursus, but only to look the idea of first cause through and through, and thoroughly analyze it, to find all the truth. By such a process we would find all that Mr. Spencer concedes that "we are obliged to suppose," and further, that such a being _must be_ self-existent. And this conviction would be so strong that the mind would rest itself in this decision: "A thousand phantasmagoria of the imagination may be wrong," says the soul, "but this I know must be true, or there is no truth in the Universe."

One sentence in the paragraph now under consideration deserves special notice. It is this. "But if we admit that there can be some thing uncaused, there is no reason to assume a cause for anything." This "assumes" the truth of a major premise all _things_ are substantially alike. If the word "thing" is restricted to its exact limits,--objects of sense,--then the sentence pertains wholly to the Sense and Understanding, and is true. But if, as it would seem, the implication is meant that there are no other entities which can be object to the mind except such "things," then it is a clear _petitio principii_. For the very question at issue is, whether, in fact, there is not one entity--"thing"--which so differs in kind from all others, that it is uncaused, _i. e._ self-existent; and whether the admission that that entity is uncaused does not, because of this seen difference, satisfy the mind, and furnish a reasonable ground on which to account for the subordinate causes which we observe by the Sense.

In speaking of the First Cause as "independent," he says, "but it can have no necessary relation within itself. There can be nothing in it which determines change, and yet nothing which prevents change. For if it contains something which imposes such necessities or restraints, this something must be a cause higher than the First Cause, which is absurd. Thus, the First Cause must be in every sense perfect, complete, total, including within itself all power, and transcending all law." We cannot criticize this better, and mark how curiously truth and error are mixed in it, than by so parodying it that only truth shall be stated. The First Cause possesses within himself all possible relations as belonging to his necessary ideals. Hence, change, in the exact sense of that term, is impossible to him, for there is nothing for him to _change to_. This is not invalidated by his passing from inaction to action; for creation involves no change in God's nature or attributes, and so no real or essential change, which is here meant. But he is the permanent, through whom all changes become. He is not, then, a _simple_ unit, but is an organized Being, who is ground for, and comprehends in a unity, all possible laws, forms, and relations, as necessary elements of his necessary existence,--as endowments which necessarily belong to him, and are conditional of his pure independence. Hence, these restraints are not "imposed" upon him, except as his existence is imposed upon him. They belong to his Self, and are conditional of his being. So, then, instead of "transcending all law," he is the embodiment of all law; and his perfection is, that possessing this endowment, he accords his conduct thereto. A being who should "transcend all law" would have no reason why he should act, and no form how he should act, neither would he be an organism, but would be pure lawlessness or pure chaos. Pure chaos cannot organize order; pure lawlessness cannot establish law; and so could not be the First Cause. As Mr. Spencer truly says, "we have no alternative but to regard this First Cause as Infinite and Absolute."

And now having learned, by a true diagnosis of the mental activities, that the positions we have gained are fixed, final, irrevocable; and further, that they are not the "results" of "reasonings," but that first there was a seeing, and then an analysis of what was seen, and that the seeing is _true_, though every other experience be false; we _know_ that our position is not "illusive," but that we stand on the rock; and that what we have seen is no "symbolic conception of the illegitimate order," but is pure truth.

For the further consideration of this subject, the reader is referred back to our remarks on that passage in Mr. Mansel's work, which Mr. Spencer has quoted.

A few remarks upon his summing up, p. 43 _et seq._, will complete the review of this chapter. "Passing over the consideration of credibility, and confining ourselves to that of" consistency, we would find in any rigorous analysis, that Atheism and Pantheism are self-contradictory; but we _have found_ that Theism, "when rigorously analyzed," presents an absolutely consistent system, in which all the difficulties of the Understanding are explained to the person by the Reason, and is entirely thinkable. Such a system, based upon the necessary convictions of man, and justly commanding that these shall be the fixed standard, in accordance with which all doubts and queries shall be dissolved and decided, gives a rational satisfaction to man, and discloses to him his eternal REST.