Part 1 (2/2)

&c.

Mr Mill then proceeds to distinguish these various meanings, and to determine in which of them the phrase is understood by Sir W. Hamilton.

One meaning is, that we only know anything by knowing it as distinguished from something else--that all consciousness is of difference. It is not, however, in this sense that the expression is ordinarily or intentionally used by Sir W. Hamilton, though he fully recognizes the truth which, when thus used, it serves to express. In general, when he says that all our knowledge is relative, the relation he has in view is not between the thing known and other objects compared with it, but between the thing known and the mind knowing--(p. 6).

The doctrine in this last meaning is held by different philosophers in two different forms. Some (e.g. Berkeley, Hume, Ferrier, &c.), usually called Idealists, maintain not merely that all we can possibly know of anything is the manner in which it affects the human faculties, but that there is nothing else to be known; that affections of human or of other minds are all that we can know to exist--that the difference between the ego and the non-ego is only a formal distinction between two aspects of the same reality. Other philosophers (Brown, Mr Herbert Spencer, Auguste Comte, with many others) believe that the ego and the non-ego denote two realities, each self-existent, and neither dependent on the other; that the Noumenon, or 'thing _per se_,' is in itself a different thing from the Phenomenon, and equally or more real, but that, though we know its existence, we have no means of knowing what it is. All that we can know is, relatively to ourselves, the modes in which it affects us, or the phenomena which it produces--(pp. 9--11).

The doctrine of Relativity, as held by Kant and his many followers, is next distinguished from the same doctrine as held by Hartley, James Mill, Professor Bain, &c., compatible with either acceptance or rejection of the Berkeleian theory. Kant maintains that the attributes which we ascribe to outward things, or which are inseparable from them in thought, contain additional elements over and above sensations _plus_ an unknowable cause--additional elements added by the mind itself, and therefore still only relative, but const.i.tuting the original furniture of the mind itself--inherent laws, partly of our sensitive, partly of our intellectual faculty. It is on this latter point that Hartley and those going along with him diverge. Admitting the same additional elements, these philosophers do not ascribe to the mind any innate forms to account for them, but hold that place, extension, substance, cause, and the rest, &c., are conceptions put together out of ideas of sensation, by the known laws of a.s.sociation--(pp. 12--14).

Partial Relativity is the opinion professed by most philosophers (and by most persons who do not philosophize). They hold that we know things partly as they are in themselves, partly as they are merely in relation to us.

This discrimination of the various schools of philosophers is highly instructive, and is given with the full perspicuity belonging to Mr Mill's style. He proceeds to examine in what sense Sir W. Hamilton maintained the Relativity of Human Knowledge. He cites pa.s.sages both from the 'Discussions on Philosophy' and from the Lectures, in which that doctrine is both affirmed in its greatest amplitude, and enunciated in the most emphatic language--(pp. 17, 18, 22, 23). But he also produces extracts from the most elaborate of Sir W. Hamilton's 'Dissertations on Reid,' in which a doctrine quite different and inconsistent is proclaimed--that our knowledge is only partially, not wholly, relative; that the secondary qualities of matter, indeed, are known to us only relatively, but that the primary qualities are known to us as they are in themselves, or as they exist objectively, and that they may be even evolved by demonstration _a priori_--(pp. 19-26, 30).

The inconsistency between the two doctrines, professed at different times, and in different works, by Sir W. Hamilton, is certainly manifest. Mr Mill is of opinion that one of the two must be taken 'in a non-natural sense,' and that Sir W. Hamilton either did not hold, or had ceased to hold, the doctrine of the full relativity of knowledge (pp.

20-28)--the hypothesis of a flat contradiction being in his view inadmissible. But we think it at least equally possible that Sir W.

Hamilton held both the two opinions in their natural sense, and enforced both of them _at different times_ by argument; his attention never having been called to the contradiction between them. That such forgetfulness was quite possible, will appear clearly in many parts of the present article. His argument in support of both is equally characterized by that peculiar energy of style which is frequent with him, and which no way resembles the qualifying refinements of one struggling to keep clear of a perceived contradiction.

From hence Mr Mill (chap. iv.) proceeds to criticise at considerable length what he justly denominates the celebrated and striking review of Cousin's philosophy, which forms the first paper in Sir W. Hamilton's 'Discussions on Philosophy.' According to Mr Mill--

'The question really at issue is this: Have we or have we not an immediate intuition of G.o.d? The name of G.o.d is veiled under two extremely abstract phrases, ”The Infinite and the Absolute,” perhaps from a reverential feeling; such, at least, is the reason given by Sir W. Hamilton's disciple, Mr Mansel, for preferring the more vague expressions; but it is one of the most unquestionable of all logical maxims, that the meaning of the abstract must be sought for in the concrete, and not conversely; and we shall see, both in the case of Sir William Hamilton, and of Mr Mansel, that the process cannot be reversed with impunity.'--p. 32.

Upon this we must remark, that though the 'logical maxim' here laid down by Mr Mill may be generally sound, we think the application of it inconvenient in the present case. Discussions on points of philosophy are best conducted without either invoking or offending religious feeling. M. Cousin maintains that we have a direct intuition of the Infinite and the Absolute: Sir W. Hamilton denies that we have. Upon this point Mr Mill sides entirely with Sir W. Hamilton, and considers 'that the latter has rendered good service to philosophy by refuting M.

Cousin,' though much of the reasoning employed in such refutation seems to Mr Mill unsound. But Sir W. Hamilton goes further, and affirms that we have no faculties capable of apprehending the Infinite and the Absolute--that both of them are inconceivable to us, and by consequence unknowable. Herein Mr Mill is opposed to him, and controverts his doctrine in an elaborate argument.

Of this argument, able and ingenious, like all those in the present volume, our limits only enable us to give a brief appreciation. In so far as Mr Mill controverts Sir W. Hamilton, we think him perfectly successful, though there are some points in his reasoning in which we do not fully concur.

In our opinion, as in his, the Absolute alone (in its sense as opposed to relative) can be necessarily unknowable, inconceivable, incogitable.

Nothing which falls under the condition of relativity can be declared to be so. The structure of our minds renders us capable of knowing everything which is relative, though there are many such things which we have no evidence, nor shall ever get evidence, to enable us to know. Now the Infinite falls within the conditions of relativity, as indeed Sir W.

Hamilton himself admits, when he intimates (p. 58) that though it cannot be known, it is, must be, and ought to be, _believed_ by us, according to the marked distinction which he draws between belief and knowledge.

We agree with Mr Mill in the opinion that it is thinkable, conceivable, knowable. Doubtless we do not conceive it adequately, but we conceive it sufficiently to discuss and reason upon it intelligibly to ourselves and others. That we conceive the Infinite inadequately, is not to be held as proof that we do not conceive it at all; for in regard to finite things also, we conceive the greater number of them only inadequately.

We cannot construe to the imagination a polygon with an infinite number of sides (i.e. with a number of sides greater than any given number), but neither can we construe to the imagination a polygon with a million of sides; nevertheless, we understand what is meant by the first description as well as by the second, and can reason upon both. There is, indeed, this difference between the two: That the terms used in describing the first, proclaim at once in their direct meaning that we should in vain attempt to construe it to the imagination; whereas the terms used in describing the second do not intimate that fact. We know the fact only by trial, or by an estimate of our own mental force which is the result of many past trials. If the difference here noted were all which Sir W. Hamilton has in view when he declares the Infinite to be unknowable and incogitable, we should accede to his opinion; but we apprehend that he means much more, and he certainly requires more to justify the marked ant.i.thesis in which he places himself against M.

Cousin and Hegel. Indeed, the facility with which he declares matters to be incogitable, which these two and other philosophers not only cogitate but maintain as truth, is to us truly surprising. The only question which appears to us important is, whether we can understand and reason upon the meaning of the terms and propositions addressed to us. If we can, the subjects propounded must be cogitable and conceivable, whether we admit the propositions affirmed concerning them or not; if we cannot, then these subjects are indeed incogitable by ourselves in the present state of our knowledge, but they may not be so to our opponent who employs the terms.

In criticising the arguments of Sir W. Hamilton against M. Cousin, Mr Mill insists much on a distinction between (1) the Infinite, and (2) the Infinite in any one or more positive attributes, such as infinite wisdom, goodness, redness, hardness, &c.[4] He thinks that Sir W.

Hamilton has made out his case against the first, but not against the last; that the first is really 'an unmeaning and senseless abstraction,'

a fasciculus of negations, unknowable and inconceivable, but not the last. We think that Mr Mill makes more of this distinction than the case warrants; that the first is not unmeaning, but an intelligible abstraction, only a higher reach of abstraction than the last; that it is knowable inadequately, in the same way as the last--though more inadequately, because of its higher abstraction.

As the finite is intelligible, so also is its negation--the Infinite: we do not say (with M. Cousin) that the two are conjointly given in consciousness--but the two are understood and partially apprehended by the mind conjointly and in contrast. Though the Infinite is doubtless negative as to a degree, it is not wholly or exclusively negative, since it includes a necessary reference to some positive attribute, to which the degree belongs; the positive element is not eliminated, but merely left undetermined. The Infinite (like the Finite, [Greek: to peperasmhenon--to hapeiron]) is a genus; it comprehends under it the Infinitely Hard and the Infinitely Soft, the Infinitely Swift and the Infinitely Slow--the infinite, in short, of any or all positive attributes. It includes, doubtless, 'a farrago of contradictions;' but so, also, does the Finite--and so, also, do the actual manifestations of the real, concrete universe, which manifestations const.i.tute a portion of the Finite. Whoever attempts to give any philosophical account of the generation of the universe, tracing its phenomena, as an aggregate, to some ultra-phenomenal origin, must include in his scheme a _fundamentum_ for all those opposite and contradictory manifestations which experience discloses in the universe. There always have been, and still are, many philosophers who consider the Abstract and General to be prior both in nature and time to the Concrete and Particular; and who hold further that these two last are explained, when presented as determinate and successive manifestations of the two first, which they conceive as indeterminate and sempiternal. Now the Infinite (Ens Infinitum or Entia Infinita, according to the point of view in which we look at it) is a generic word, including all these supposed indeterminate antecedents; and including therefore, of course, many contradictory agencies. But this does not make it senseless or unmeaning; nor can we distinguish it from 'the Infinite in some one or more given attributes,' by any other character than by greater reach of abstraction. We cannot admit the marked distinction which Mr Mill contends for--that the one is unknowable and the other knowable.

It may be proper to add that the mode of philosophizing which we have just described is not ours. We do not agree in this way either of conceiving, or of solving, the problem of philosophy. But it is a mode so prevalent that Trendelenberg speaks of it, justly enough, as 'the ancient Hysteron-Proteron of Abstraction.' The doctrine of these philosophers appears to us unfounded, but we cannot call it unmeaning.

In another point, also, we differ from Mr Mill respecting that inferior abstraction which he calls 'the Infinite in some particular attribute.'

He speaks as if this could be known not only as an abstraction, a conceivable, an ideal--but also as a concrete reality; as if 'we could know a concrete reality as infinite or as absolute' (p. 45); as if there really existed in actual nature 'concrete persons or things possessing infinitely or absolutely certain specific attributes'--(pp. 55--93). To this doctrine we cannot subscribe. As we understand concrete reality, we find no evidence to believe that there exist in nature any real concrete persons or things, possessing to an infinite degree such attributes as they do possess: _e.g._ any men infinitely wise or infinitely strong, any horses infinitely swift, any stones infinitely hard. Such concrete real objects appear to us not admissible, because experience not only has not certified their existence in any single case, but goes as far to disprove their existence as it can do to disprove anything. All the real objects in nature known to us by observation are finite, and possess only in a finite measure their respective attributes. Upon this is founded the process of Science, so comprehensively laid out by Mr Mill in his 'System of Logic '--Induction, Deduction from general facts attested by Induction, Verification by experience of the results obtained by Deduction. The attributes, whiteness or hardness, in the abstract, are doubtless infinite; that is, the term will designate, alike and equally, any degree of whiteness or hardness which you may think of, and any unknown degree even whiter and harder than what you think of. But when perceived as invested in a given ma.s.s of snow or granite before us, they are divested of that indeterminateness, and become restricted to a determinate measure and degree.

Having thus indicated the points on which we are compelled to dissent from Mr Mill's refutation of Sir W. Hamilton in the pleading against M.

Cousin, we shall pa.s.s to the seventh chapter, in which occurs his first controversy with Mr Mansel. This pa.s.sage has excited more interest, and will probably be remembered by a larger number of readers, than any portion of the book. We shall give it in his own words (pp. 99--103), since the energetic phraseology is quite as remarkable as the thought:--

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