Chapter III: Part 3

This definition of _infinite space_ is exactly that which Descartes gives us of _indefinite extension_,--"Ita quia non possumus imaginari extensionem tam magnam, quin intelligamus adhuc majorem esse posse, dicemus magnitudinem rerum possibilium esse indefinitam."[AR] So too, Cudworth,--"There appeareth no sufficient ground for this positive infinity of space; we being certain of no 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 _indefinite increasableness_ of body and space seems to be mistaken for a _positive infinity_ thereof."[AS] 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."[AT] Mr. Mill thus unwittingly illustrates, in his own person, the truth of Hamilton's remark, "If we dream of effecting this [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 _infinite_, the metaphysician calls _indefinite_, 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?[AU]

[AR] _Principia_, i., 26.

[AS] _Intellectual System_, ed. Harrison, vol. iii., p. 131.

[AT] _Essay_, ii., 17, 7.

[AU] One of the ablest mathematicians, and the most
persevering Hamiltono-mastix of the day, maintains the
applicability of the metaphysical notion of infinity to
mathematical magnitudes; but with an assumption which
unintentionally vindicates Hamilton's position more
fully than could have been done by a professed disciple.
"I shall assume," says Professor De Morgan, in a paper
recently printed among the _Transactions of the
Cambridge Philosophical Society_, "the notion of
infinity and of its reciprocal infinitesimal: that a
line can be conceived infinite, and therefore having
points at an infinite distance. Image apart, which we
cannot have, it seems to me clear that a line of
infinite length, without points at an infinite distance,
is a contradiction." Now it is easy to show, 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 point. 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.

In fact, it is the "concrete reality," the "something infinite," and not the mere abstraction of infinity, which is only conceivable 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," I mean a something existing in a different manner from all the "somethings" of which 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 negative term, but because it has never been realised in intuition. If infinity, as applied to space, means the same thing as being greater than any finite space, both conceptions 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 includes both the Infinite and the Absolute, and these are contradictory of one another." His argument is a common disjunctive syllogism. The unconditioned, if conceivable at all, must be conceived _either_ as the absolute _or_ as the infinite; neither of these is possible; 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 required," says Mr. Mill, "is not within the thing itself, but is made up between itself and other things." It is, in fact, both; but even granting Mr. Mill's assumption, what is a "plurality between a thing and other things" but a relation between them? There is undoubtedly a "strange confusion of ideas" in this paragraph; but the confusion 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:--"[Greek: Ouden emoige atopon dokei heinai ei hen hapanta apophainei tis tô metechein· tou henos kai tauta tauta polla tô plêthous au metechein; all' ei ho estin hen, auto touto polla apodeixei, kai au ta polla dê hen, touto êdê thaumasomai.]"[AV] Here we are expressly 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 words. In point of fact, however, it is Mr. Mill who is in error, and not Plato. In different relations, no doubt, the same concrete 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. Hamilton of departing from his own meaning 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 figure are of the essence of matter, and perceived as such by intuition," we must briefly reply that Hamilton does no such thing. He is not speaking of the essence of matter _per se_, but only of matter as apprehended in relation to us.

[AV] _Parmenides_, p. 129.

Mr. Mill concludes this chapter with an attempt to discover the meaning of Hamilton'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 the reasons which led Schelling to so paradoxical a position: he simply assumes that no man could hold Schelling's view, and there is an end of it.[AW] 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 be by reference to these two philosophers. But this is not the method of 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 Hamilton'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 interpretations are generally in the potential mood. He wastes a good deal of conjecture in discovering what Hamilton might have meant, when a little attention in the right quarter would have shown what he did mean.

[AW] Mr. Mill does not expressly name Schelling in this
sentence: but he does so shortly afterwards; 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 purpose." 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 consciousness 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 controverting it is to invent an
imaginary faculty for the purpose.

The third feature of Hamilton's philosophy which we charged Mr. Mill with misunderstanding, is the distinction between Knowledge 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, admitted "a second source of intellectual conviction called Belief." Now Belief is not a "source" of any conviction, but the conviction itself. No man would say that he is convinced of the truth of a proposition _because_ he believes it; his belief in its truth is the same thing as his conviction of its truth. Belief, then, is not a source of conviction, 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 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 language, 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 which 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 conviction of axiomatic principles as _belief_, and not as _knowledge_.[AX] 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.

[AX] Hamilton's distinction is in principle the same as that
which 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_ ([Greek: hoti esti]), and when we are unable
to comprehend through a higher notion or belief _Why or
How it is_ ([Greek: dioti esti])."--(Reid's Works, p.
754.) We would distinguish between _why_ and _how_,
between [Greek: dioti], and [Greek: pôs]. We can give
no reason _why_ two straight lines cannot enclose a
space; but we can comprehend _how_ they cannot. We have
only to form the corresponding image, to see the manner
in which the two attributes coexist in one object. But
when I say that I believe in the existence of a
spiritual 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 or absence of the
corresponding intuition; but to show this in the various
instances would require a longer dissertation than our
present limits will allow.

We may believe _that_ a thing is, without being able to conceive _how_ it is. I believe _that_ God is a person, and also _that_ 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 have no belief at all? May I not say, I believe, in spite of Kant, _that_ 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 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 that knowledge is relative. We cannot regard this as a very satisfactory mode of refuting Hamilton's thesis.[AY]

[AY] 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
Absolute themselves; and such consciousness is
Knowledge. The fallacy of this retort is transparent.
The immediate object of Belief is a _proposition_ which
I hold to be true, not a _thing_ apprehended in an act
of conception. I believe in an infinite God; _i.e._, I
believe _that_ God is infinite: I believe that the
attributes which I ascribe to God exist in Him in an
infinite degree. Now, to believe this proposition, I
must, of course, be conscious of its meaning; but I am
not therefore conscious of the Infinite God as an object
of conception; for this 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
Mr. Mill not having distinguished between those passages
in which Sir W. Hamilton is merely using an _argumentum
ad hominem_ in relation to Reid, and those in which he
is reasoning from general principles.

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 inconceivability, he tells us, are usually dependent on association; and it is quite possible 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 round, that two straight lines may enclose a space, or even that two and two may make five.[AZ] 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 forthwith proceeds to charge Sir William with confusing three distinct senses of the term _conception_--a confusion which exists solely in his own imagination,[BA]--and to assert that the Philosophy of the Conditioned is entirely founded on a mistake, inasmuch as infinite space on the one hand, and, on the other, both an absolute minimum and an infinite divisibility of space, are perfectly conceivable. With regard to the former of these two assertions, Mr. Mill's whole argument is 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 specimen of the kind of reasoning which an eminent writer on logic can sometimes employ. 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 long did he think it would take to go 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?"

[AZ] 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 contemplation
of the 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 two _plus_ the new creature,
_i.e._, of two and two _plus_ one.

[BA] The sense in which Sir W. Hamilton himself uses the word
_conception_ is explained in a note to _Reid's Works_,
p. 377--namely, the combination of two or more
attributes in a _unity of representation_. The second
sense which Mr. Mill imagines is simply a mistake 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 affect the theory of the
conditioned, and that in all the long extracts which Mr.
Mill quotes, with footnotes, indicating "first sense,"
"second sense," "third sense," the author's meaning may
be more accurately explained in the first sense only.

It is marvellous that it should not have 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 exhaust 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 long 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."[BB]

[BB] Precisely the same misconception of Hamilton's position
occurs 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 _hold_ all it can conceive." 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.

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
which to the naked eye appears an indivisible point; it has been
called by philosophers the _minimum visibile_. This minimum we can
indefinitely magnify by means of optical instruments, making
visible the still smaller parts which compose it. In each
successive experiment there is still a _minimum visibile_, anything
less than which cannot be discovered with that instrument, but can
with one of a higher power. Suppose, now, that as we increase the
magnifying power of our instruments, and before we have reached 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
construction, is adapted to magnify more, but still remains
apparently indivisible. I say, that if this happened, we should
believe in a minimum of extension; or if some _à priori_
metaphysical prejudice prevented us from believing it, we should 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 visibile_, and know what is the magnifying power of our microscope, to determine the exact dimensions. Suppose, then, that we assign to it some definite magnitude--say the ten billionth part of an inch,--should we then conclude that it is impossible to conceive the twenty billionth part of an inch?--in other words, that we have arrived at a definite magnitude which has no conceivable half? Surely this is a somewhat rash concession to be made by a writer who 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 attempting to criticise. "The law of Excluded Middle," he says, "as well as that of Contradiction, is common to all phenomena. But it is a doctrine of our author that these laws are true, and cannot but be known to be true, of Noumena likewise. 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 must be either limited or unlimited: concerning 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 Excluded Middle, are laws of things as well as laws of thought;[BC] 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, "Everything must be A or not A" (_extended_, if you please, or _not extended_); but in its subordinate 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.

[BC] _Discussions_, p. 603.

We have now examined the first six chapters of Mr. Mill's book, containing his remarks on that portion of Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy which he justly regards as comprising the most important of the doctrines 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 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 misapprehension 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 argument 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 knowledge which we have of such 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 sufficient to hinder us from _believing_ 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 irrefragable 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 shown a tendency towards Pantheism, and which, in one of its latest and most finished manifestations, announces itself as the exhibition 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 the earlier part of this article, have, from the very beginning of Christian theology, prevented theologians from accepting the limited personality of man as an exact image and counterpart of the unlimited personality of God. These difficulties Mr. Mansel endeavours to meet in two ways. On the one side, he maintains, in common with Sir W. Hamilton, that the Philosophy of the Unconditioned, by reason of its own incongruities 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 him, that human personality cannot be assumed as an exact copy 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 probabilities, varying, 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 evidences. 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 _à priori_ of what God ought to do in a given case, by determining what we should think it wise or right 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 evidences. 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 harmony of all accessible evidences: where they appear to differ, we have no right at once to conclude that the second or the third must give way to the first, and not _vice versâ_; because we have no right to assume that the first alone is infallible. 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 _worthless_ in relation to Divine things, but that they are _fallible_: and the probability of error in any particular case can never be fairly estimated without giving their full weight to all collateral considerations. 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 particular doctrines or precepts. And we are bound to bear in mind that _exactly in proportion to the strength of the remaining evidence for the Divine origin of a religion, is the probability that we may be mistaken in supposing this or that portion of its contents to be unworthy of God._ Taken in conjunction, the two arguments may confirm or correct each other: taken singly and absolutely, each may vitiate the result which should follow from their joint application."[BD]

[BD] _Bampton Lectures_, p. 156, 4th edition.

In criticising the first part of this argument--that which is directed against the deductive philosophy of the Unconditioned--Mr. Mill manifests the same want of acquaintance with its meanings, 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 "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 description 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 Noumenon! 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.[BE] But is 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 relation to its Creator? But Mr. Mill, as we have seen before, is not much at home when he gets among "noumena." We must proceed to his criticism of the second part of the definition,--"having no necessary relation to any other being." Of these words he says, that "they admit of two constructions. The words in their natural sense only mean, _capable of existing out of relation to anything else_. The argument requires that they should mean _incapable 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,--

[BE] Strictly speaking, the term _noumenon_, as meaning that
which can be apprehended only by the intellect, implies
a relation to the intellect apprehending it; and in this
sense [Greek: to nooumenon] is opposed by Plato to
[Greek: to horômenon]--the object of intellect to the
object of sight. But as the intellect was supposed to
take cognisance of things as they are, in opposition to
the sensitive perception of things as they appear, the
term _noumenon_ became synonymous with _thing in itself_
([Greek: to hon kath' hauto]). And this meaning is
retained in the Kantian philosophy, in which the
_noumenon_ is identical with the _Ding an sich_. 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 which 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 _phenomenon_, meant to
imply that the former is necessarily self-existent, and
therefore uncreated.

"In what manner is a possible existence out of all relation,
incompatible with the notion of a cause? Have not causes a possible
existence apart from their effects? Would the sun, for example, not
exist if there were no earth or planets for it to illuminate? Mr.
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. Mansel'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 that Newton cannot be thought by us
both as an Englishman and as a mathematician, because an
Englishman, as such, is not a mathematician, nor a mathematician,
as such, an Englishman."--(P. 92.)

The "confusion of ideas" is entirely of Mr. Mill's own making, and is owing to his having mutilated the argument before criticising it. The argument in its original form consists of two parts; the first intended to show that the Absolute is not conceived _as such_ in being conceived as a Cause; the second to show that the Absolute cannot be conceived under different aspects at different times--first as Absolute, and then as Cause. It was the impossibility of this latter alternative 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 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 _as such_ is not to know the absolute. We presume Mr. Mill himself will admit that to know Newton as a mathematician is not to know him as an Englishman. Whether he can be known separately as both, and whether the Absolute in this respect is a parallel 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 Mr. Mansel's argument for the inconceivability of the
Infinite and of the Absolute is one long _ignoratio elenchi_. It
has been pointed out in a former chapter that the words Absolute
and Infinite have no real meaning, unless we understand by them
that which is 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
power, and absolute in the sense of absolute goodness or knowledge.
It has also been shown that Sir W. Hamilton's arguments for the
unknowableness of the Unconditioned do not prove that we cannot
know an object which is absolute or infinite in some specific
attribute, but only that we cannot know an abstraction called 'The
Absolute' or 'The Infinite,' which 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 Being _absolutely_ just or _absolutely_ wise"[BF] (_i.e._, as he supposes, _perfectly_ 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 _ignoratio elenchi_.

[BF] _Examination_, p. 95.

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 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 "the Infinite, if it is to be conceived at all, must be conceived as potentially everything and actually nothing; for if there is anything in general which it cannot become, it is thereby limited; and if there is anything in particular which it actually is, it is thereby excluded from being any other thing. But, again, it must also be conceived as actually everything and potentially nothing; for an 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, and discerned as an object of consciousness." On this passage Mr. Mill remarks, "Can a writer be serious who bids us conjure up a conception of something which possesses infinitely all conflicting attributes, and because we cannot do this without contradiction, would have us believe that there is a contradiction in the idea of infinite goodness or infinite wisdom?" The answer to this criticism 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 realissimum_ of the older philosophers, the _pure being_ of the Hegelians, cannot be attained as a starting-point from which to deduce all relative and derived existence. How far the empirical conception of certain mental attributes, such as goodness or wisdom, derived in the first instance from our own personal consciousness, can be positively conceived as extended to infinity, is considered in a separate argument, which Mr. Mill does not notice.

Mr. Mill continues, "Instead of 'the Infinite,' substitute 'an infinitely good Being' [_i.e._, substitute what is not intended], and Mr. Mansel's argument 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 any other 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 venture 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 acquire some slight acquaintance with the 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 philosophers of such different schools of thought as Spinoza, Malebranche, Wolf, Kant, Schelling, could be quite such a piece of transparent nonsense as he supposes it to be. All these writers are cited in Mr. Mansel'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 supposing 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 explained 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, must 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 philosophy began. The Manichean, by referring evil to an independent cause, denies the existence of an absolute first principle at all; the Leibnitzian, 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 higher indifference. All these conclusions 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 absolute 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 nature of such 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 meaning of the words themselves." They do no such thing: the meaning of the words is perfectly intelligible, and is exactly what is expressed by their definitions: the 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 things can be.

It is wearisome work to wade through this mass of misconceptions; yet we must entreat the reader's patience a little 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 language. Mr. Mansel, as we have said, asserts, as many others have asserted before him, that the relation between the communicable attributes of God and the corresponding 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 attributes have to human nature. Thus, for example, there is a Divine justice and there is a human justice; but God is just as the Creator and Governor of the world, having unlimited authority over all His creatures and unlimited jurisdiction over 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 government 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 individuals. Or to take a more general case: Man has in himself a rule of right and wrong, implying subjection to the authority of a superior (for conscience has authority only as reflecting the law of God); while God has in 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 will, the same relation to motives and inducements, the same deliberation and choice of alternatives, the same temporal succession of facts in consciousness, which we ascribe to man,--it will follow that those psychological relations between reason, will, and desire, which are implied in the conception of human action, cannot represent the Divine excellences in themselves, but can only illustrate them by analogies from finite things. And if man is liable to error in judging of the conduct of his fellow-men, in proportion 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 following extraordinary outburst of rhetoric:--

"If, instead of the 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 attributes are infinite, but what they
are we cannot learn, nor what are the principles of his government,
except that 'the highest human morality which we are capable of
conceiving' 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 this being by the names which express and
affirm the highest human 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 will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that
epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me
to hell for not so calling him, 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 meaning, when it is applied, as it constantly is, to different persons among our "fellow-creatures," with express reference to their different duties and different qualifications for performing them? 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 generally 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? [Greek: Hê aretê pros to ergon to oikeion]--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 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, but 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?