[BE] Strictly speaking, the term _noumenon_, as meaning that which can be apprehended only by the intellect, implies a relation to the intellect apprehending it; and in this sense [Greek: to nooumenon] is opposed by Plato to [Greek: to horomenon]--the object of intellect to the object of sight. But as the intellect was supposed to take cognisance of things as they are, in opposition to the sensitive perception of things as they appear, the term _noumenon_ became synonymous with _thing in itself_ ([Greek: to hon kath' hauto]). And this meaning is retained in the Kantian philosophy, in which the _noumenon_ is identical with the _Ding an sich_. But as Kant denied to the human intellect any immediate intuition of things as they are (though such an intuition may be possible to a superhuman intellect), hence the term _noumenon_ in the Kantian philosophy is opposed to all of which the human intellect can take positive cognisance. Hamilton, in this respect, agrees with Kant. But neither Kant nor Hamilton, in opposing the _thing in itself_ to the _phenomenon_, meant to imply that the former is necessarily self-existent, and therefore uncreated. "In what manner is a possible existence out of all relation, incompatible with the notion of a cause? Have not causes a possible existence apart from their effects? Would the sun, for example, not exist if there were no earth or planets for it to illuminate? Mr. Mansel seems to think that what is capable of existing out of relation, cannot possibly be conceived or known in relation. But this is not so.... Freed from this confusion of ideas, Mr. Mansel's argument resolves itself into this,--The same Being cannot be thought by us both as Cause and as Absolute, because a Cause _as such_ is not Absolute, and Absolute, as such, is not a Cause; which is exactly as if he had said that Newton cannot be thought by us both as an Englishman and as a mathematician, because an Englishman, as such, is not a mathematician, nor a mathematician, as such, an Englishman."--(P. 92.)