The Philosophy of the ConditionedMansel, Henry Longueville
Religion
The Philosophy of the Conditioned
Mansel, Henry Longueville
Hamilton, William, Sir, 1788-1856; Mill, John Stuart, 1806-1873. Examination of Sir William Hamilton's philosophy
"If in man, intelligence be a free power,--in so far as its liberty
extends, intelligence must be independent of necessity and matter;
and a power independent of matter necessarily implies the existence
of an immaterial subject--that is, a spirit. If, then, the original
independence of intelligence on matter in the human
constitution--in other words, if the spirituality of mind in man be
supposed a datum of observation, in this datum is also given both
the condition and the proof of a God. For we have only to infer,
what analogy entitles us to do, that intelligence holds the same
relative supremacy in the universe which it holds in us, and the
first positive condition of a Deity is established, in the
establishment of the absolute priority of a free creative
intelligence. On the other hand, let us suppose the result of our
study of man to be, that intelligence is only a product of matter,
only a reflex of organization, such a doctrine would not only not
afford no basis on which to rest any argument for a God, but, on
the contrary, would positively warrant the atheist in denying His
existence. For if, as the materialist maintains, the only
intelligence of which we have any experience be a consequent of
matter,--on this hypothesis, he not only cannot assume this order
to be reversed in the relations of an intelligence beyond his
observation, but, if he argue logically, he must positively
conclude that, as in man, so in the universe, the phenomena of
intelligence or design are only in their last analysis the products
of a brute necessity. Psychological Materialism, if carried out
fully and fairly to its conclusions, thus inevitably results in
theological Atheism; as it has been well expressed by Dr. Henry
More, _Nullus in microcosmo spiritus, nullus in macrocosmo Deus_. I
do not, of course, mean to assert that all materialists deny or
actually disbelieve a God. For, in very many cases, this would be
at once an unmerited compliment to their reasoning, and an
unmerited reproach to their faith."--_Lectures_, vol. i, p.
31.[L]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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