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
2. What the phenomena are which cannot be comprehended therein.
In general, it may be said that all those perceptions and assertions of
the mind, which are instinctive, and which it involuntarily qualifies as
universal and necessary, are not, and cannot be comprehended in Sir
William Hamilton's scheme. To give an exhaustive presentation of all the
_a priori_ laws of the mind, would be beyond the scope of the present
undertaking, and would be unnecessary to its success. This will be
secured by presenting a classification of them, and sufficient examples
under each class. Moreover, to avoid a labor which would not be in place
here, we shall attempt no new classification; but shall accept without
question, as ample for our purpose, that set forth by one of our purest
and every way best thinkers,--Rev. Mark Hopkins, D. D., President of
Williams College, Mass.
"The ideas and beliefs which come to us thus, may be divided into,
first, mathematical ideas and axioms. These are at the foundation of the
abstract sciences, having for their subject, quantity. In the second
division are those which pertain to mere being and its relations. Upon
these rest all sciences pertaining to actual being and its relations.
The third division comprises those which pertain to beauty. These are at
the foundation of aesthetical science. In the fourth division are those
which pertain to morals and religion. Of these the pervading element is
the sense of obligation or duty. Of this the idea necessarily arises in
connection with the choice by a rational being of a supreme end, and
with the performance of actions supposed to bear upon that."--_Moral
Science_, p. 161.
First.--Mathematical ideas and axioms.
Take, for instance, the multiplication table. Can any one, except a
Limitist, be induced to believe that it was originally _constructed_;
that a will put it together, and might take it apart? Seven times seven
now make forty-nine. Will any one say that it might have been made to
make forty-seven; or that at some future time such may be the case? Or
again, take the axiom "Things which are equal to the same thing are
equal to one another." Will some one say, that the intellectual beings
in the universe might, with equal propriety, have been so constructed as
to affirm that, in some instances, things which are equal to the same
thing are _unequal_ to one another? Or consider the properties of a
triangle. Will our limitist teachers instruct us that these properties
are a matter of indifference; that for aught we know, the triangle might
have been made to have three right angles? Yet again. Examine the
syllogism. Was its law constructed?
All M is X;
All Z is M;
All Z is X.
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