Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885Various
General
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
I enter now on that portion of Mr. Harrison’s last article to which
is specially applicable its title “Agnostic Metaphysics.” In this
he recalls sundry of the insuperable difficulties set forth by Dean
Mansel, in his _Bampton Lectures_, as arising when we attempt to
frame any conception of that which lies beyond the realm of sense.
Accepting, as I did, Hamilton’s general arguments, which Mansel applied
to theological conceptions, I contended in _First Principles_ that
their arguments are valid, only on condition that that which transcends
the relative is regarded not as negative, but as positive; and that
the relative itself becomes unthinkable as such in the absence of a
postulated non-relative. Criticisms on my reasoning allied to those
made by Mr. Harrison, have been made before, and have before been
answered by me. To an able metaphysician, the Rev. James Martineau, I
made a reply which I may be excused here for reproducing, as I cannot
improve upon it:—
Always implying terms in relation, thought implies that
both terms shall be more or less defined; and as fast
as one of them becomes indefinite, the relation also
becomes indefinite, and thought becomes indistinct. Take
the case of magnitudes. I think of an inch; I think
of a foot; and having tolerably-definite ideas of the
two, I have a tolerably-definite idea of the relation
between them. I substitute for the foot a mile; and
being able to represent a mile much less definitely, I
cannot so definitely think of the relation between an
inch and a mile—cannot distinguish it in thought from
the relation between an inch and two miles, as clearly
as I can distinguish in thought the relation between an
inch and one foot from the relation between an inch and
two feet. And now if I endeavor to think of the relation
between an inch and the 240,000 miles from here to the
Moon, or the relation between an inch and the 92,000,000
miles from here to the Sun, I find that while these
distances, practically inconceivable, have become little
more than numbers to which I frame no answering ideas,
so, too, has the relation between an inch and either of
them become practically inconceivable. Now this partial
failure in the process of forming thought relations,
which happens even with finite magnitudes when one of
them is immense, passes into complete failure when
one of them cannot be brought within any limits. The
relation itself becomes unrepresentable at the same
time that one of its terms becomes unrepresentable.
Nevertheless, in this case it is to be observed that
the almost-blank form of relation preserves a certain
qualitative character. It is still distinguishable as
belonging to the consciousness of extensions, not to the
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