Christianity and Greek Philosophy Part 20

"Thought," says Hamilton, "can not transcend consciousness: consciousness is only possible under the ant.i.thesis of a subject and an object known only in correlation, and _mutually limiting each other_"[318] Thought necessarily supposes conditions; "to think is simply to condition," that is, to predicate limits; and as the infinite is the unlimited, it can not be thought. The very attempt to think the infinite renders it finite; therefore there can be no infinite _in thought_, and, consequently, the infinite can not be known.

[Footnote 317: Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 179.]

[Footnote 318: "Discussions," p. 21.]

If by "the infinite in thought" is here meant the infinite compa.s.sed or contained in thought, we readily grant that the finite can not contain the infinite; it is a simple truism which no one has ever been so foolish as to deny. Even Cousin is not so unwise as to a.s.sert the absolutely comprehensibility of G.o.d. "In order absolutely to comprehend the Infinite, it is necessary to have an infinite power of comprehension, and this is not granted to us."[319] A finite mind can not have "an infinite thought." But it by no means follows that, because we can not have infinite thought, we can have no clear and definite thought of or concerning the Infinite. We have a precise and definite idea of infinitude; we can define the idea; we can set it apart without danger of being confounded with another, and we can reason concerning it. There is nothing we more certainly and intuitively know than that s.p.a.ce is infinite, and yet we can not comprehend or grasp within the compa.s.s of our thought the infinite s.p.a.ce. We can not form an _image_ of infinite s.p.a.ce, can not traverse it in perception, or represent it by any combination of numbers; but we can have the _thought_ of it as an idea of Reason, and can argue concerning it with precision and accuracy.[320] Hamilton has an idea of the Infinite; he defines it; he reasons concerning it; he says "we must believe in the infinity of G.o.d."

But how can he define the Infinite unless he possesses some knowledge, however limited, of the infinite Being? How can he believe in the infinity of G.o.d if he has no definite idea of infinitude? He can not reason about, can not affirm or deny any thing concerning, that of which he knows absolutely nothing.

[Footnote 319: "Lectures on History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 104.]

[Footnote 320: "To form an _image_ of any infinitude--be it of time or s.p.a.ce [or power]; to go mentally through it by successive steps of representation--is indeed impossible; not less so than to traverse it in our finite perception and experience. But to have the _thought_ of it as an idea of the reason, not of the phantasy, and a.s.sign that thought a const.i.tuent place in valid beliefs and consistent reasonings, appears to us as not only possible, but inevitable."--Martineau's "Essays," p.

205.]

The grand logical barrier which Hamilton perpetually interposes to all possible cognition of G.o.d _as infinite_ is, that to think is to condition--to limit; and as the Infinite is the unconditioned, the unlimited, therefore "the Infinite can not be _thought_." We grant at once that all human thought is limited and finite, but, at the same time, we emphatically deny that the limitation of our thought imposes any conditions or limits upon the object of thought. No such affirmation can be consistently made, except on the Hegelian hypothesis that "Thought and Being are identical;" and this is a maxim which Hamilton himself repudiates. Our thought does not create, neither does it impose conditions upon, any thing.

There is a lurking sophism in the whole phraseology of Hamilton in regard to this subject. He is perpetually talking about "thinking a thing"--"thinking the Infinite." Now we do not think a thing, but we think _of_ or _concerning_ a thing. We do not think a man, neither does our thought impose any conditions upon the man, so that he must be as our thought conceives or represents him; but our thought is of the man, concerning or about the man, and is only so far true and valid as it conforms to the objective reality. And so we do not "think the Infinite;" that is, our thought neither contains nor conditions the Infinite Being, but our thoughts are _about_ the Infinite One; and if we do not think of Him as a being of infinite perfection, our thought is neither worthy, nor just, nor true.[321]

[Footnote 321: Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," pp. 255, 256.]

But we are told the law of all thought and of all being is determination; consequently, negation of some quality or some potentiality; whereas the Infinite is "_the One and the All_" (t? ?? ?a?

???),[322] or, as Dr. Mansel, the disciple and annotator of Hamilton, affirms, "the sum of all reality," and "the sum of all possible modes of being."[323] The Infinite, as thus defined, must include in itself all being, and all modes of being, actual and possible, not even excepting evil. And this, let it be observed, Dr. Mansel has the hardihood to affirm. "If the Absolute and the Infinite is an object of human conception at all, this, and none other, is the conception required."[324] "The Infinite Whole," as thus defined, can not be thought, and therefore it is argued the Infinite G.o.d can not be known.

Such a doctrine shocks our moral sense, and we shrink from the thought of an Infinite which includes evil. There is certainly a moral impropriety, if not a logical impossibility, in such a conception of G.o.d.

[Footnote 322: Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," Appendix, vol. ii.

p. 531.]

[Footnote 323: "Limits of Religious Thought," p. 76.]

[Footnote 324: Ibid.]

The fallacy of this reasoning consists in confounding a _supposed_ Quant.i.tative Infinite with _the_ Qualitative Infinite--the totality of existence with the infinitely perfect One. "Qualitative infinity is a secondary predicate; that is, the attribute of an attribute, and is expressed by the adverb _infinitely_ rather than the adjective _infinite_. For instance, it is a strict use of language to say, that s.p.a.ce is infinite, but it is an elliptical use of language to say, G.o.d is infinite. Precision of language would require us to say, G.o.d is infinitely good, wise, and great; or G.o.d is good, and his goodness is infinite. The distinction may seem trivial, but it is based upon an important difference between the infinity of s.p.a.ce and time on the one hand, and the infinity of G.o.d on the other. Neither philosophy nor theology can afford to disregard the difference. Quant.i.tative Infinity is illimitation by _quant.i.ty_. Qualitative Infinity is illimitation by _degree_. Quant.i.ty and degree alike imply finitude, and are categories of the finite alone. The danger of arguing from the former kind of infinitude to the latter can not be overstated. G.o.d alone possesses Qualitative Infinity, which is strictly synonymous with _absolute perfection_; and the neglect of the distinction between this and Quant.i.tative Infinity, leads irresistibly to pantheistic and materialistic notions. Spinozism is possible only by the elevation of 'infinite extension' to the dignity of a divine attribute. Dr. Samuel Clarke's identification of G.o.d's immensity with s.p.a.ce has been shown by Martin to ultimate in Pantheism. From ratiocinations concerning the incomprehensibility of infinite s.p.a.ce and time, Hamilton and Mansel pa.s.s at once to conclusions concerning the incomprehensibility of G.o.d. The inconsequence of all such arguments is absolute; and if philosophy tolerates the transference of spatial or temporal a.n.a.logies to the nature of G.o.d, she must reconcile herself to the negation of his personality and spirituality."[325] An Infinite Being, quite remote from the notion of _quant.i.ty_, may and does exist; which, on the one hand, does not include finite existence, and, on the other hand, does not render the finite impossible to thought. Without contradiction they may coexist, and be correlated.

The thought will have already suggested itself to the mind of the reader that for Hamilton to a.s.sert that the Infinite, as thus defined (the One and the All), is absolutely unknown, is certainly the greatest absurdity, for in that case nothing can be known. This Infinite must be at least partially known, or all human knowledge is reduced to zero. To the all-inclusive Infinite every thing affirmative belongs, not only to be, but to be known. To claim it for being, yet deny it to thought, is thus impossible. The Infinite, which includes all real existence, is certainly possible to cognition.

The whole argument as regards the conditionating nature of all thought is condensed into four words by Spinoza--"_Omnis determinatio est negatio_;" all determination is negation. Nothing can be more arbitrary or more fallacious than this principle. It arises from the confusion of two things essentially different--_the limits of a being_, and _its determinate and distinguishing characteristics_. The limit of a being is its imperfection; the determination of a being is its perfection. The less a thing is determined, the more it sinks in the scale of being; the most determinate being is the most perfect being. "In this sense G.o.d is the only being absolutely determined. For there must be something indetermined in all finite beings, since they have all imperfect powers which tend towards their development after an indefinite manner. G.o.d alone, the complete Being in whom all powers are actualized, escapes by His own perfection from all progress, and development, and indetermination."[326]

[Footnote 325: North American Review, October, 1864, article, "The Conditioned and the Unconditioned," pp. 422, 423. See also Young's "Province of Reason," p. 72; and Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 183.]

[Footnote 326: Saisset, "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. p. 71.]

All real being must be determined; only pure Nothing can be undetermined. _Determination_ is, however, one thing; and _limitation_ is essentially another thing. "Even s.p.a.ce and time, though cognized solely by negative characteristics, are determined in so far as differentiated from the existences they contain; but this differentiation involves no limitation of their infinity." If all distinction is determination, and if all determination is negation, that is (as here used), limitation, then the infinite, as distinguished from the finite, loses its own infinity, and either becomes identical with the finite, or else vanishes into pure nothing. If Hamilton will persist in affirming that all determination is limitation, he has no other alternatives but to accept the doctrine of Absolute Nihilism, or of Absolute Ident.i.ty. If the Absolute is the indeterminate--that is, no attributes, no consciousness, no relations--it is pure non-being. If the Infinite is "the One and All," then there is but one substance, one absolute ent.i.ty.

Herbert Spencer professes to be carrying out, a step farther, the doctrine put into shape by Hamilton and Mansel, viz., "the philosophy of the Unconditioned." In other words, he carries that doctrine forward to its rigidly logical consequences, and utters the last word which Hamilton and Mansel dare not utter--"Apprehensible by us there is no G.o.d." The Ultimate Reality is absolutely unknown; it can not be apprehended by the human intellect, and it can not present itself to the intellect at all. This Ultimate Reality can not be _intelligent_, because to think is to condition, and the Absolute is the unconditioned; can not be _conscious_, because all consciousness is of plurality and difference, and the Absolute is one; can not be _personal_, because personality is determination or limitation, and the Infinite is the illimitable. It is "audacious," "irreverent," "impious," to apply any of these predicates to it; to regard it as Mind, or speak of it as Righteous.[327] The ultimate goal of the philosophy of the Unconditioned is a purely subjective Atheism.

[Footnote 327: "First Principles," pp. 111, 112.]

And yet of this Primary Existence--inscrutable, and absolutely unknown--Spencer knows something; knows as much as he pleases to know.

He knows that this "ultimate of ultimates is _Force_,"[328] an "_Omnipresent Power_,"[329] is "_One_" and "_Eternal_."[330] He knows also that it can not be intelligent, self-conscious, and a personality.[331] This is a great deal to affirm and deny of an existence "absolutely unknown." May we not be permitted to affirm of this hidden and unknown something that it is _conscious Mind_, especially as Mind is admitted to be the only a.n.a.logon of Power; and "the _force_ by which we produce change, and which serves to symbolize the causes of changes in general, is the final disclosure of a.n.a.lysis."[332]

[Footnote 328: "First Principles," p. 235.]

[Footnote 329: Ibid., p. 99.]

[Footnote 330: Ibid., p. 81.]

[Footnote 331: Ibid., pp. 108-112.]

[Footnote 332: Ibid., p. 235.]

3. We advance to the review of the third fundamental principle of Hamilton's philosophy of the Unconditioned, viz., that the terms infinite and absolute are names for a "mere negation of thought"--a "mental impotence" to think, or, in other words, the absence of all the conditions under which thought is possible.

This principle is based upon a distinction between "positive" and "negative" thought, which is made with an air of wonderful precision and accuracy in "the Alphabet of Human Thought."[333] "Thinking is _positive_ when existence is predicated of an object." "Thinking is _negative_ when existence is not attributed to an object." "Negative thinking," therefore, is not the thinking of an object as devoid of this or that particular attribute, but as devoid of all attributes, and thus of all existence; that is, it is "the negation of all thought"--_nothing_. "When we think a thing, that is done by conceiving it as possessed of certain modes of being or qualities, _and the sum of these qualities const.i.tutes its concept or notion_." "When we perform an act of negative thought, this is done by thinking _something_ as _not_ existing in this or that determinate mode; and when we think it as existing in no determinate mode, _we cease to think at all--it becomes a nothing_."[334] Now the Infinite, according to Hamilton, can not be thought in any determinate mode; therefore we do not think it at all, and therefore it is for us "a logical Non-ent.i.ty."

[Footnote 333: "Discussions," Appendix I. p. 567.]

[Footnote 334: "Logic," pp. 54, 55.]

It is barely conceivable that Hamilton might imagine himself possessed of this singular power of "performing an act of negative thought"--that is, of thinking and not thinking at once, or of "thinking something"

that "becomes nothing;" we are not conscious of any such power. To think without an object of thought, or to think of something without any qualities, or to think "something" which in the act of thought melts away into "nothing," is an absurdity and a contradiction. We can not think about nothing. All thought must have an object, and every object must have some predicate. Even s.p.a.ce has some predicates--as receptivity, unity, and infinity. Thought can only be realized by thinking something existing, and existing in a determinate manner; and when we cease to think something having predicates, we cease to think at all. This is emphatically a.s.serted by Hamilton himself.[335] "Negative thinking" is, therefore, a meaningless phrase, a contradiction in terms; it is no thought at all. We are cautioned, however, against regarding "the negation of thought" as "a negation of all mental ability." It is, we are told, "an attempt to think, and a failure in the attempt." An attempt to think about _what_? Surely it must be about some object, and an object which is _known_ by some sign, else there can be no thought.

Let any one make the attempt to think without something to think about, and he will find that both the process and the result are blank nothingness. All thought, therefore, as Calderwood has amply shown, is, must be, _positive_. "Thought is nothing else than the comparison of objects known; and as knowledge is always positive, so must our thought be. All knowledge implies an object _known_; and so all thought involves an object about which we think, and must, therefore, be positive--that is, it must embrace within itself the conception of certain qualities as belonging to the object."[336]

[Footnote 335: "Logic," p. 55.]

[Footnote 336: "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 272.]

The conclusion of Hamilton's reasoning in regard to "negative thinking"

is, that we can form no notion of the Infinite Being. We have no positive idea of such a Being. We can think of him only by "the thinking away of every characteristic" which can be conceived, and thus "ceasing to think at all." We can only form a "negative concept," which, we are told, "is in fact no concept at all." We can form only a "negative notion," which, we are informed, "is only the negation of a notion."

This is the impenetrable abyss of total gloom and emptiness into which the philosophy of the conditions leads us at last.[337]

[Footnote 337: Whilst Spencer accepts the general doctrine of Hamilton, that the Ultimate Reality is inscrutable, he argues earnestly against his a.s.sertion that the Absolute is a "mere negation of thought."

"Every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is demonstrated distinctly postulates the _positive existence_ of something beyond the relative. To say we can not know the Absolute is, by implication, to affirm there _is_ an Absolute. In the very denial of our power to learn _what_ the Absolute is, there lies hidden the a.s.sumption _that_ it is; and the making of this a.s.sumption proves that the Absolute has been present to the mind, not as nothing, but as _something_. And so with every step in the reasoning by which the doctrine is upheld, the Noumenon, everywhere named as the ant.i.thesis of the Phenomenon, is throughout thought as actuality. It is rigorously impossible to conceive that our knowledge is a knowledge of appearances only, without, at the same time, conceiving a Reality of which these are appearances, for appearances without reality are unthinkable.

"Truly to represent or realize in thought any one of the propositions of which the argument consists, the unconditioned must be represented as _positive_, and not negative. How, then, can it be a legitimate conclusion from the argument that our consciousness of it is negative?

An argument, the very construction of which a.s.signs to a certain term a certain meaning, but which ends in showing that this term has no meaning, is simply an elaborate suicide. Clearly, then, the very demonstration that a definite consciousness [comprehension] of the Absolute is impossible, unavoidably presupposes an indefinite consciousness of it [an apprehension]."--"First Principles," p. 88.]

Still we have the word _infinite_, and we have _the notion_ which the word expresses. This, at least, is spared to us by Sir William Hamilton.

He who says we have no such notion asks the question _how we have it?_ Here it may be asked, how have we, then, the word infinite? How have we the notion which this word expresses? The answer to this question is contained in the distinction of positive and negative thought.

We have a positive concept of a thing when we think of it by the qualities of which it is the complement. But as the attribution of qualities is an affirmation, as affirmation and negation are relatives, and as relatives _are known only in and through each other_, we can not, therefore, have a _consciousness_ of the affirmation of any quality without having, at the same time, the _correlative consciousness_ of its negation. Now the one consciousness is a positive, the other consciousness is a negative notion; and as all language is the reflex of thought, the positive and negative notions are expressed by positive and negative names. Thus it is with the Infinite.[338] Now let us carefully scrutinize the above deliverance. We are told that "relatives are known only in and through each other;" that is, such relatives as _finite_ and _infinite_ are known necessarily in the same act of thought. The knowledge of one is as necessary as the knowledge of the other. We can not have a consciousness of the one without the correlative consciousness of the other. "For," says Hamilton, "a relation is, in truth, a thought, one and indivisible; and while the thinking a relation _necessarily involves the thought of its two terms,_, so it is, with equal necessity, itself involved in the thought of either." If, then, we are _conscious_ of the two terms of the relation in the same "one and indivisible" mental act--if we can not have "the consciousness of the one without the consciousness of the other"--if s.p.a.ce and position, time and succession, substance and quality, infinite and finite, are given to us in pairs, then 'the _knowledge of one is as necessary as the knowledge of the other,_' and they must stand or fall together. The finite is known no more positively than the infinite; the infinite is known as positively as the finite. The one can not be taken and the other left. The infinite, discharged from all relation to the finite, could never come into apprehension; and the finite, discharged of all relation to the infinite, is incognizable too. "There can be no objection to call the one 'positive' and the other 'negative,' provided it be understood that _each_ is so with regard to the other, and that the relation is convertible; the finite, for instance, being the negative of the infinite, not less than the infinite of the finite."[339]

[Footnote 338: _Logic,_ p. 73.]

[Footnote 339: Martineau's "Essays," p. 237.]

To say that the finite is comprehensible in and by itself, and the infinite is incomprehensible in and by itself, is to make an a.s.sertion utterly at variance both with psychology and logic. The finite is no more comprehensible _in itself_ than the infinite. "Relatives are known only in and through each other."[340] "The conception of one term of a relation necessarily implies that of the other, it being the very nature of a relative to be thinkable only through the conjunct thought of its correlative." We comprehend nothing more completely than the infinite; "for the idea of illimitation is as clear, precise, and intelligible as the idea of limitability, which is its basis. The propositions "A is X"

"A is not X," are equally comprehensible; the conceptions A and X are in both cases positive data of experience, while the affirmation and negation consist solely in the copulative or disjunctive nature of the predication. Consequently, if X is comprehensible, so is not--X; if the finite is comprehensible, so is the infinite."[341]

Whilst denying that the infinite can by us be _known_, Hamilton tells us he is "far from denying that it is, must, and ought to be _believed_."[342] "We must believe in the infinity of G.o.d."