Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation: Including Some Strictures Upon the Theories of Rev. Henry L. Mansel and Mr. Herbert SpencerJones, Jesse Henry
Religion
Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation: Including Some Strictures Upon the Theories of Rev. Henry L. Mansel and Mr. Herbert Spencer
practical want--a standard unit, by which it measures parts in Space and
Time. So motion must be measured by some assumed standard; and as, like
time,--duration,--it can be represented by a line, let them have a
common standard. Suppose, then, that the ball's flight occupies ten
minutes of time. The line from m to z will be divided into ten exactly
equal spaces; and it will be no more difficult to account for the flow
of force from 10 to 9, than from 1 to 0. Also let it be observed that
the force, like time, is a unit, which the Sense, for its convenience,
divides into parts; but that neither those parts, nor any parts, have
any real existence. As Time is an indivisible whole, measured off for
convenience, so any given force is such a whole, and is so measured off.
All this appearing and measuring are phenomenal in the Sense. It is the
Reason which sees that they can be _only_ phenomenal, and that behind
the appearance is pure Spirit--God, who is primarily out of all
relation.
On page 58, near the close of his illustration of the chair, Mr. Spencer
says: "It suffices to remark that since the force as known to us is an
affection of consciousness, we cannot conceive the force as existing in
the chair under the same form without endowing the chair with
consciousness." This very strange assertion can only be true, provided a
major premiss, No force can be conceived to exist without involving an
affection of consciousness in the object in which it _apparently_
inheres, is true. Such a premiss seems worse than absurd; it seems
silly. We cannot learn that force exists, without our consciousness is
affected thereby; but this is a very different thing from our being
unable to conceive of a force as _existing_, without there is a
consciousness in the object through which it _appears_. If Mr. Spencer
had said that no force can be, without being exerted, and no force can
be exerted, without an affection of the consciousness of the exertor, he
would have uttered the truth. We would then have the following result.
Primarily all force is exerted by the Deity; and he is conscious
thereof. He draws the chair down just as really as though the hand were
visible. Secondarily spiritual persons are endowed by their Creator with
the ability to exert his force for their uses, and so I lift the chair.
The great error, which appears on every page of Mr. Spencer's book and
invalidates all his conclusions, shows itself fully here. He presents
images from the Sense, and then tries to satisfy the Reason--the faculty
which calls for an absolute account--by the analyses of that Sense. His
attempt to "halve the rate," his remark that "the smallest movement is
separated by an impassable gap from no movement," and many such, are
only pertinent to the Sense, can never be explained by the Sense, and
are found by the Reason to need, and be capable of, no such kind of
explanation as the Sense attempts; but that the phenomena are
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