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
In summing up the results to which an examination of the facts of
consciousness conducted him, Mr. Mansel utters the following
psychological error: "But a limit is necessarily conceived as a relation
between something within and something without itself; and the
consciousness of a limit of thought implies, though it does not directly
present to us, the existence of something of which we do not and cannot
think." Not so; for a limit may be seen to be wholly within the being to
whom it belongs, and so _not_ to be "a relation between something within
and something without itself." This is precisely the case with the
Deity. All relations and limits spring from within him, and there is
nothing "without" to establish the relation claimed. This absence of all
limit from without is rudely expressed in such common phrases as this:
"It must be so in the _nature of things_." This "nature of things" is,
in philosophical language, the system of _a priori_ laws of the
Universe, and these are necessary ideas in the Divine Reason. It
appears, then, that what must be in the nature of things, finds its
limits wholly within, and its relations established by the Deity.
With these remarks the author would close his criticism upon Mr.
Mansel's book. We start from entirely different bases, and these two
systems logically follow from their foundations. If Sir William Hamilton
is right in his psychology, his follower is unquestionably right in his
deductions. But if that psychology is partial, if besides the
Understanding there is the Reason, if above the judgment stands the
intuition, giving the final standard by which to measure that judgment,
then is the philosophical system of the Divine utterly fallacious. The
establishment of the validity of the Pure Reason is the annihilation of
"the Philosophy of the Unconditioned." On the ground which the author
has adopted, it is seen that "God is a spirit," infinite, absolute,
self-conscious, personal; and a consistent interpretation of these terms
has been given. We have found that certain objects may be seen as out of
all relation, plurality, difference, or likeness. Consciousness and
personality have also been found to involve no limit, in the proper
sense of that term. On the contrary, the one was ascertained to be the
light in which any or all objects might be seen under conditions of
Time, or at once; and that this seeing was according to the capacity
with which the being was endowed, and was not determined by any
peculiarity of the consciousness; while the other appeared to be the
highest possible form of existence, and that also in which God had
revealed himself. From such a ground it is possible to go forward and
construct a Rational Theology which shall verify by Reason the teachings
of the Bible.
REVIEW OF MR. HERBERT SPENCER'S "FIRST PRINCIPLES."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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