mentioned by Sir W. Hamilton do I believe that he could substantiate his assertion, that "the Conditioned," by which he means every object of human knowledge, lies between two "inconditionate " hypotheses, both of them inconceivable. Let me add, that even granting the inconceivability of the two opposite hypotheses, I cannot see that any distinct meaning is conveyed by the statement that the Conditioned is "the mean " between them, or that "all positive thought," "all that we can positively think," "lies between " these two "extremes, these "two opposite poles of thought." The extremes are, space in the aggregate considered as having a limit, Space in the aggregate considered as having no limit. Neither of these, says Sir W. Hamilton, can we think. But what we can positively think (according to him) is not Space in the aggregate at all; it is some limited Space, and this we think as square, as circular, as triangular, or as elliptical. Are triangular and elliptical a mean between infinite and finite? They are, by the very meaning of the words, modes of the finite. So that it would be more like the truth to say that we think the pretended mean under one of the extremes; and if infinite and finite are "two opposite poles of thought," then in this polar opposition, unlike voltaic polarity, all the matter is accumulated at one pole. But this counterstatement would be no more tenable than Sir W. Hamilton's; for in reality, the thought which he affirms to be a medium between two extreme statements, has no correlation with those statements at all. It does not relate to the same object. The two counter-hypotheses are suppositions respecting Space at large, Space as a collective whole. The "conditioned" thinking, said to be the mean between them, relates to parts of Space, and classes of such parts: circles and triangles, or planetary and stellar distances. The alternative of opposite in-. conceivabilities never presents itself in regard to them; they are all finite, and are conceived and known as such. What the notion of extremes and a mean can signify, when applied to propositions in which different predicates are affirmed of different subjects, passes my comprehen

sion but it served to give greater apparent profundity to the "Fundamental Doctrine," in the eyes not of disciples (for Sir W. Hamilton was wholly incapable of quackery) but of the teacher himself.

If these arguments are valid, the "Law of the Conditioned" rests on no rational foundation. The proposition that the Conditioned lies between two hypotheses concerning the Unconditioned, neither of which hypotheses we can conceive as possible, must be placed in that numerous class of metaphysical doctrines, which have a magnificent sound, but are empty of the smallest substance.*

In the first edition, besides denying the inconceivability of the pairs of contradictory hypotheses in Sir W. Hamilton's Antinomies, I also contested the assertion that one or other of them must be true; arguing, that the law of Excluded Middle, though true of all phenomena, and therefore of Space and Time in their phenomenal character, is not a law of Things. "The law of Excluded Middle is, that whatever predicate we suppose, "either that or its negative must be true of any given subject: and this "I do not admit when the subject is a Noumenon; inasmuch as every "possible predicate, even negative, except the single one of Non-entity, "involves, as a part of itself, something positive, which part is only known "to us by phenomenal experience, and may have only a phenomenal "existence." This, being an over-statement, and when reduced to its proper bounds, not necessarily conflicting with anything said by Sir W. Hamilton on the present subject, I abandon. But I retain a portion of my remarks, illustrative of the abusive application of which the Principle of Excluded Middle is susceptible. "The universe, for example, must, it "is affirmed, be either infinite or finite; but what do these words mean? "That it must be either of infinite or finite magnitude. Magnitudes "certainly must be either infinite or finite, but before affirming the same "thing of the Noumenon Universe, it has to be established that the "universe as it is in itself is capable of the attribute magnitude. How do "we know that magnitude is not exclusively a property of our sensations"of the states of subjective consciousness which objects produce in us? "Or if this supposition displeases, how do we know that magnitude is "not, as Kant considered it to be, a form of our minds, an attribute with "which the laws of thought invest every conception that we can formı, "but to which there may be nothing analogous in the Noumenon, the "Thing in itself? The like may be said of Duration, whether infinite or "finite, and of Divisibility, whether stopping at a minimum or prolonged "without limit. Either the one proposition or the other must of course "be true of duration and of matter as they are perceived by us-as they present themselves to our faculties; but duration itself is held by Kant "to have no real existence out of our minds; and as for matter, not "knowing what it is in itself, we know not whether, as affirmed of matter "in itself, the word divisible has any meaning. Believing divisibility to "be an acquired notion, made up of the elements of our sensational ex"perience, I do not admit that the Noumenon Matter must be either "infinitely or finitely divisible."

CHAPTER VII.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED AS APPLIED BY MR. MANSEL TO THE LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

MR. MANSEL may be affirmed, by a fair application of the term, to be, in metaphysics, a pupil of Sir W. Hamilton. I do not mean that he agrees with him in all his opinions; for he avowedly dissents from the peculiar Hamiltonian theory of Cause: still less that he has learnt nothing from any other teacher, or from his own independent speculations. On the contrary, he has shown considerable power of original thought, both of a good and of what seems to me not a good quality. But he is the admiring editor of Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures; he invariably speaks of him with a deference which he pays to no other philosopher; he expressly accepts, in language identical with Sir W. Hamilton's own, the doctrines regarded as specially characteristic of the Hamiltonian philosophy, and may with reason be considered as a representative of the same general mode of thought. Mr. Mansel has bestowed especial cultivation upon a province but slightly touched by his masterthe application of the Philosophy of the Conditioned to the theological department of thought; the deduction. of such of its corollaries and consequences as directly concern religion.

The premises from which Mr. Mansel reasons are those of Sir W. Hamilton. He maintains the necessary relativity of all our knowledge. He holds that the Absolute and the Infinite, or, to use a more significant expression, an Absolute and an Infinite Being, are inconceivable by us; and that when we strive to conceive what

is thus inaccessible to our faculties, we fall into self-contradiction. That we are, nevertheless, warranted in believing, and bound to believe, the real existence of an absolute and infinite being, and that this being is God. God, therefore, is inconceivable and unknowable by us, and cannot even be thought of without self-contradiction; that is (for Mr. Mansel is careful thus to qualify the assertion), thought of as Absolute, and as Infinite. Through this inherent impossibility of our conceiving or knowing God's essential attributes, we are disqualified from judging what is or is not consistent with them. If, then, a religion is presented to us, containing any particular doctrine respecting the Deity, our belief or rejection of the doctrine ought to depend exclusively upon the evidences which can be produced for the divine origin of the religion; and no argument grounded on the incredibility of the doctrine, as involving an intellectual absurdity, or on its moral badness as unworthy of a good or wise being, ought to have any weight, since of these things we are incompetent to judge. This, at least, is the drift of Mr. Mansel's argument; but I am bound to admit that he affirms the conclusion with a certain limitation; for he acknowledges, that the moral character of the doctrines of a religion ought to count for something among the reasons for accepting or rejecting, as of divine origin, the religion as a whole. That it ought also to count for something in the interpretation of the religion when accepted, he neglects to say; but we must in fairness suppose that he would admit it. These concessions, however, to the moral feelings of mankind, are made at the expense of Mr. Mansel's logic. If his theory is correct, he has no right to make either of them.

There is nothing new in this line of argument as applied to theology. That we cannot understand God; that his ways are not our ways; that we cannot scrutinise or judge his counsels-propositions which, in a reasonable sense of the terms, could not be denied by any Theist-have often before been tendered as reasons why we may assert any absurdities and any moral monstrosi

ties concerning God, and miscall them Goodness and Wisdom. The novelty is in presenting this conclusion as a corollary from the most advanced doctrines of modern philosophy from the true theory of the powers and limitations of the human mind, on religious and on all other subjects.

My opinion of this doctrine, in whatever way presented, is, that it is simply the most morally pernicious doctrine now current; and that the question it involves is, beyond all others which now engage speculative minds, the decisive one between moral good and evil for the Christian world. It is a momentous matter, therefore, to consider whether we are obliged to adopt it. Without holding Mr. Mansel accountable for the moral consequences of the doctrine, further than he himself accepts them, I think it supremely important to examine whether the doctrine itself is really the verdict of a sound metaphysic; and essential to a true estimation of Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy to enquire, whether the conclusion thus drawn from his principal doctrine, is justly affiliated on it. I think it will appear that the conclusion not only does not follow from a true theory of the human faculties, but is not even correctly drawn from the premises from which Mr. Mansel infers it.

We must have the premises distinctly before us as conceived by Mr. Mansel, since we have hitherto seen them only as taught by Sir W. Hamilton. Clearness and explicitness of statement being in the number of Mr. Mansel's merits, it is easier to perceive the flaws in his arguments than in those of his master, because he often leaves us less in doubt what he means by his words.

To have "such a knowledge of the Divine Nature " as would enable human reason to judge of theology, would be, according to Mr. Mansel,* "to conceive the Deity as he is." This would be to "conceive him as First Cause, as Absolute, and as Infinite." The First Cause Mr. Mansel defines in the usual manner. About the meaning of Infinite there is no difficulty. But when *Limits of Religious Thought, 4th edition, pp. 29, 30.

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