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
The following remark upon Cousin requires some notice. "For those who,
with M. Cousin, regard the notion of the unconditioned as a positive and
real knowledge of existence in its all-comprehensive unity, and who
consequently employ the terms _Absolute_, _Infinite_, _Unconditioned_,
as only various expressions for the same identity, are imperatively
bound to prove that their idea of _the One corresponds, either with that
Unconditioned we have distinguished as the Absolute, or with that
Unconditioned we have distinguished as the Infinite, or that it includes
both, or that it excludes both_. This they have not done, and, we
suspect, have never attempted to do." The italics are Hamilton's. The
above statement is invalid, for the following reasons. The Absolute,
therein named, has been shown to be irrelevant to the matter in hand,
and an absurdity. It is self-evident that the term "limited whole," as
applied to Space and Time, is a violation of the laws of thought. Since
we seek the truth, that Absolute must be rejected. Again, the
definitions of the terms absolute and infinite, which have been found
consistent, and pertinent to Space and Time, have been further found
irrelevant and meaningless, when applied to the Being, the One, who is
the Creator. That Being, existing primarily out of all relation to Space
and Time, must, if known at all, be studied, and known as he is. The
terms infinite and absolute will, of necessity, then, when applied to
him, have entirely different significations from what they will when
applied to Space and Time. So, then, no decision of questions arising in
this latter sphere will have other than a negative value in the former.
The questions in that sphere must be decided on their own merits, as
must those in this. What is really required, then, is, that the One, the
Person, be shown to be both absolute and infinite, and that these, as
qualities, consistently inhere in that _unity_. As this has already been
done in the first Part of this treatise, nothing need be added here.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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