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
Will any one say that _perhaps_, we don't know but it might have been so
made, as to appear to us that the conclusion was Some Z is not X? Or
will the Limitists run into that miserable petty subterfuge of an
assertion, "All this _seems_ to us as it is, and we cannot see how it
could be different; but then, our minds are so feeble, they are confined
in such narrow limits, that it would be the height of presumption to
assert positively with regard to stronger minds, and those of wider
scope? Perhaps they see things differently." _Perhaps_ they do; but if
they do, their minds or ours falsify! The question is one of _veracity_,
nothing more. Throughout all the range of mathematics, the positive and
_unqualified_ affirmation of the mind is that its intuitions are
absolute and universal; that they are _a priori_ laws conditional of
_all_ intellect; that of the Deity just as much as that of man.
Feebleness and want of scope have nothing to do with mind in its
affirmation, "Seven times seven _must_ make forty-nine; _and cannot by
any possibility of effort make any other product_;" and every intellect,
_if it sees at all, must see it so_. And so on through the catalogue.
From this, it follows in this instance, that human knowledge is
_exhaustive_, and so is exactly similar, and equal to the Deity's
knowledge.
Second. Those ideas and beliefs which pertain to mere being and its
relations.
Take, for instance, the axiom, A material body cannot exist in the
Universe without standing in some relation to all the other material
bodies in that Universe. Either this is absolutely true, or it is not.
If it is so true, then every intellectual being to whom it presents
itself as object at all, must see it as every other does. One may see
more relations than another; but the axiom in its intrinsic nature must
be seen alike by all. If it is not absolutely true, then the converse,
or any partially contradictory proposition, may be true. For example. A
material body may exist in the Universe, and stand in no relation to
some of the other material bodies in that Universe. But, few men will
hesitate to say, that this is not only utterly unthinkable, but that it
could only become thinkable by a denial and destruction of the laws of
thought; or, in other words, by the stultification of the mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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