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
[G] _Theodicee, Discours de la Conformite de la Foi avec
la Raison, Sec. 56._ Leibnitz, it will be observed, uses
the expression _pour comprendre_, for which, in the
preceding remarks, we have substituted _to conceive_.
The change has been made intentionally, on account of an
ambiguity in the former word. Sometimes it is used, as
Leibnitz here uses it, to denote an apprehension of the
manner in which certain attributes can coexist in an
object. But sometimes (to say nothing of other senses)
it is used to signify a complete knowledge of an object
in all its properties and their consequences, such as it
may be questioned whether we have of any object
whatever. This ambiguity, which has been the source of
much confusion and much captious criticism, is well
pointed out by Norris in his _Reason and Faith_ (written
in reply to Toland), p. 118, Ed. 1697: "When we say that
_above reason_ is when we do not comprehend or perceive
the truth of a thing, this must not be meant of not
comprehending the truth in its whole latitude and
extent, so that as many truths should be said to be
above reason as we cannot thus thoroughly comprehend and
pursue throughout all their consequences and relations
to other truths (for then almost everything would be
above reason), but only of not comprehending the union
or connection of those immediate ideas of which the
proposition supposed to be above reason consists."
_Comprehension_, as thus explained, answers exactly to
the ordinary logical use of the term _conception_, to
denote the combination of two or more attributes in an
unity of representation. In the same sense, M. Peisse,
in the preface to his translation of Hamilton's
_Fragments_, p. 98, says,--"Comprendre, c'est voir un
terme en rapport avec un autre; c'est voir comme un ce
qui est donne comme multiple." This is exactly the
sense in which Hamilton himself uses the word
_conception_. (See _Reid's Works_, p. 377.)
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