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
_a._ He treats of consciousness as a faculty of knowledge. In this he
uses the term in the inexact, careless, popular manner, rather than with
due precision. As has been observed on a former page, consciousness is
the light in which the person sees his faculties act. Thus some feeling
is affected. This feeling is cognized by the intellectual faculty, and
of this the person is conscious. Hence it is an elliptical expression to
say "I am conscious of the feeling." The full form being "I am conscious
that I know the feeling." Thus is it with all man's activities. Applying
this to the case in hand, it appears, not that we are conscious of the
Absolute, but that we are conscious that the proper intellectual
faculty, the Pure Reason, presents what absoluteness is, and that the
absolute Person is, and through this presentation--intuition--the
spiritual person knows these facts. We repeat, then, our position:
consciousness is the indivisible unity, the light in which the person
sees all his faculties and capacities act; and so is to be considered as
different in kind from them all as the peculiar and unique endowment of
a spiritual person.
_b._ Mr. Spencer speaks of a "vague," an "indefinite consciousness." The
expression "vague consciousness" being a popular and very common one,
deserves a careful examination, and this we hope to give it, keeping in
mind meantime the position already attained.
The phrase is used in some such connection as this, "I have a vague or
undefined consciousness of impending evil." Let us analyze this
experience. In doing so it will be observed that the consciousness, or
rather the seeing by the person in the light of consciousness, is
positive, clear, and definite, and is the apprehension of a feeling.
Again, the feeling is positive and distinct; it is a feeling of dread,
of threatening danger. What, then, is vague--is undefined? This. That
cause which produces the feeling lies without the reach of the cognitive
faculties, and of course cannot be known; because what produces the
feeling is unknown, the intellectual apprehension experiences a sense of
vagueness; and this it instinctively carries over and applies to the
feeling. Yet really the sense of vagueness arises from an ignorance of
the cause of the feeling. Strictly speaking, then, it is not
consciousness that is vague; and so Mr. Spencer's "_indefinite_
consciousness, which cannot be formulated," has no foundation in fact.
But this may be shown by another line of thought. Consciousness is
commensurate with knowledge, _i. e._, man can have no knowledge except
he is conscious of that knowledge; neither can he have any consciousness
except he knows that the consciousness is, and what the consciousness
is, _i. e._, what he is conscious of. Now all knowledge is definite; it
is only ignorance that is indefinite. When we say that our knowledge of
an object is indefinite, we mean that we partly know its
characteristics, and are partly ignorant of them. Thus then also the
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