The Philosophy of the Conditioned Part 1

The Philosophy of the Conditioned.

by H. L. Mansel.

PREFACE

The circ.u.mstance that the following remarks were originally published as an anonymous article in a Review, will best explain the style in which they are written. Absence from England prevented me from becoming acquainted with Mr. Mill's _Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy_ till some time after its publication; and when I was requested to undertake the task of reviewing it, I was still ignorant of its contents. On proceeding to fulfil my engagement, I soon discovered, not only that the character of the book was very different from what the author's reputation had led me to expect, but also that my task would be one, not merely of criticism, but, in some degree, of self-defence. The remarks on myself, coming from a writer of Mr. Mill's ability and reputation, were such as I could not pa.s.s over without notice; while, at the same time, I felt that my princ.i.p.al duty in this instance was the defence of one who was no longer living to defend himself. Under these circ.u.mstances, the best course appeared to be, to devote the greater portion of my article to an exposition and vindication of Sir W.

Hamilton's teaching; and, in the additional remarks which it was necessary to make on the more personal part of the controversy, to speak of myself in the third person, as I should have spoken of any other writer. The form thus adopted has been retained in the present republication, though the article now appears with the name of its author.

My original intention of writing a review of the entire book was necessarily abandoned as soon as I became acquainted with its contents.

To have done justice to the whole subject, or to Mr. Mill's treatment of it, would have required a volume nearly as large as his own. I therefore determined to confine myself to the _Philosophy of the Conditioned_, both as the most original and important portion of Sir W. Hamilton's teaching, and as that which occupies the first place in Mr. Mill's _Examination_.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED.

The reader of Plato's _Republic_ will readily recall to mind that wonderful pa.s.sage at the end of the sixth book, in which the philosopher, under the image of geometrical lines, exhibits the various relations of the intelligible to the sensible world; especially his lofty aspirations with regard to "that second segment of the intelligible world, which reason of itself grasps by the power of dialectic, employing hypotheses, not as principles, but as veritable hypotheses, that is to say, as steps and starting-points, in order that it may ascend _as far as the unconditioned_ ([Greek: mechri tou anypothetou]), to the first principle of the universe, and having grasped this, may then lay hold of the principles next adjacent to it, and so go down to the end, using no sensible aids whatever, but employing abstract forms throughout, and terminating in forms."

This quotation is important for our present purpose in two ways. In the first place, it may serve, at the outset of our remarks, to propitiate those plain-spoken English critics who look upon new terms in philosophy with the same suspicion with which Jack Cade regarded "a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear," by showing that the head and front of our offending, "the Unconditioned," is no modern invention of Teutonic barbarism, but sanctioned even by the Attic elegance of a Plato. And in the second place, it contains almost a history in miniature of the highest speculations of philosophy, both in earlier and in later times, and points out, with a clearness and precision the more valuable because uninfluenced by recent controversies, the exact field on which the philosophies of the Conditioned and the Unconditioned come into collision, and the nature of the problem which they both approach from opposite sides.

What is the meaning of this problem, the solution of which Plato proposes as the highest aim of philosophy--"to ascend to the unconditioned, and thence to deduce the universe of conditioned existence?" The problem has a.s.sumed different forms at different times: at present we must content ourselves with stating it in that in which it will most naturally suggest itself to a student of modern philosophy, and in which it has the most direct bearing on the subject of the present article.

All consciousness must in the first instance present itself as a relation between two const.i.tuent parts, the person who is conscious, and the thing, whatever it may be, of which he is conscious. This contrast has been indicated, directly or indirectly, by various names--mind and matter; person and thing; subject and object; or, lastly, in the distinction, most convenient for philosophy, however uncouth in sound, between self and not self--the _ego_ and the _non-ego_. In order to be conscious at all, I must be conscious of something: consciousness thus presents itself as the product of two factors, _I_ and _something_. The problem of the unconditioned is, briefly stated, to reduce these two factors to one.

For it is manifest that, so long as they remain two, we have no unconditioned, but a pair of conditioned existences. If the _something_ of which I am conscious is a separate reality, having qualities and modes of action of its own, and thereby determining, or contributing to determine, the form which my consciousness of it shall take, my consciousness is thereby conditioned, or partly dependent on something beyond itself. It is no matter, in this respect, whether the influence is direct or indirect--whether, for instance, I see a material tree, or only the mental image of a tree. If the nature of the thing in any degree determines the character of the image--if the visible form of a tree is different from that of a house because the tree itself is different from the house, my consciousness is, however remotely, influenced by something different from itself, the _ego_ by the _non-ego_. And on the other hand, if I, who am conscious, am a real being, distinct from the things of which I am conscious--if the conscious mind has a const.i.tution and laws of its own by which it acts, and if the mode of its consciousness is in any degree determined by those laws, the _non-ego_ is so far conditioned by the _ego_; the thing which I see is not seen absolutely and _per se_, but in a form partly dependent upon the laws of my vision.

The first step towards the reduction of these two factors to one may obviously be made in three different ways. Either the _ego_ may be represented as a mode of the _non-ego_, or the _non-ego_ of the _ego_, or both of a _tertium quid_, distinct from either. In other words: it may be maintained, _first_, that matter is the only real existence; mind and all the phenomena of consciousness being really the result solely of material laws; the brain, for example, secreting thought as the liver secretes bile; and the distinct personal existence of which I am apparently conscious being only the result of some such secretion. This is _Materialism_, which has then to address itself to the further problem, to reduce the various phenomena of matter to some one absolutely first principle on which everything else depends. Or it may be maintained, _secondly_, that mind is the only real existence; the intercourse which we apparently have with a material world being really the result solely of the laws of our mental const.i.tution. This is _Idealism_, which again has next to attempt to reduce the various phenomena to some one immaterial principle. Or it may be maintained, _thirdly_, that real existence is to be sought neither in mind as mind nor in matter as matter; that both cla.s.ses of phenomena are but qualities or modes of operation of something distinct from both, and on which both alike are dependent. Hence arises a third form of philosophy, which, for want of a better name, we will call _Indifferentism_, as being a system in which the characteristic differences of mind and matter are supposed to disappear, being merged in something higher than both.

In using the two former of these terms, we are not speaking of Materialism and Idealism as they have always actually manifested themselves, but only of the distinguis.h.i.+ng principle of these systems when pushed to its extreme result. It is quite possible to be a materialist or an idealist with respect to the immediate phenomena of consciousness, without attempting a philosophy of the Unconditioned at all. But it is also possible, and in itself natural, when such a philosophy is attempted, to attempt it by means of the same method which has approved itself in relation to subordinate inquiries; to make the relation between the human mind and its objects the type and image of that between the universe and its first principle. And such attempts have actually been made, both on the side of Materialism and on that of Idealism; and probably would be made oftener, did not counteracting causes frequently hinder the logical development of speculative principles.

In modern times, and under Christian influences, these several systems are almost necessarily identified with inquiries concerning the existence and nature of G.o.d. The influence of Christianity has been indirectly felt, even in speculations prosecuted in apparent independence of it; and the admission of an absolute first principle of all things distinct from G.o.d, or the acknowledgment of a G.o.d separate from or derived from the first principle of all things, is an absurdity which, since the prevalence of Christianity, has become almost impossible, even to antichristian systems of thought. In earlier times, indeed, this union of philosophy with theology was by no means so imperative. A philosophy like that of Greece, which inherited its speculations from a poetical theogony, would see no difficulty in attributing to the G.o.d or G.o.ds of its religious belief a secondary and derived existence, dependent on some higher and more original principle, and in separating that principle itself from all immediate connection with religion. It was possible to a.s.sume, with the Ionian, a material substance, or, with the Eleatic, an indifferent abstraction, as the first principle of things, without holding that principle to be G.o.d, or, as the only alternative, denying the existence of a G.o.d; and thus, as Aristotle[A] has observed, theologians endeavoured to evade the consequences of their abstract principles, by attributing to the chief good a later and derived existence, as the poets supposed the supreme G.o.d to be of younger birth than night and chaos and sea and sky. But to a Christian philosophy, or to a philosophy in any way influenced by Christianity, this method of evasion is no longer possible. If all conditioned existence is dependent on some one first and unconditioned principle, either that principle must be identified with G.o.d, or our philosophical speculations must fall into open and avowed atheism.

[A] _Metaph._, xiv. 4.

But at this point the philosophical inquiry comes in contact with another line of thought, suggested by a different cla.s.s of the facts of consciousness. As a religious and moral being, man is conscious of a relation of a personal character, distinct from any suggested by the phenomena of the material world,--a relation to a supreme Personal Being, the object of his religious wors.h.i.+p, and the source and judge of his moral obligations and conduct. To adopt the name of G.o.d in an abstract speculation merely as a conventional denomination for the highest link in the chain of thought, and to believe in Him for the practical purposes of wors.h.i.+p and obedience, are two very different things; and for the latter, though not for the former, the conception of G.o.d as a Person is indispensable. Were man a being of pure intellect, the problem of the Unconditioned would be divested of its chief difficulty; but he is also a being of religious and moral faculties, and these also have a claim to be satisfied by any valid solution of the problem. Hence the question a.s.sumes another and a more complex form. How is the one absolute existence, to which philosophy aspires, to be identified with the personal G.o.d demanded by our religious feelings?

Shall we boldly a.s.sume that the problem is already solved, and that the personal G.o.d is the very Unconditioned of which we were in search? This is to beg the question, not to answer it. Our conception of a personal being, derived as it is from the immediate consciousness of our own personality, seems, on examination, to involve conditions incompatible with the desired a.s.sumption. Personal agency, similar to our own, seems to point to something very different from an absolutely first link in a chain of phenomena. Our actions, if not determined, are at least influenced by motives; and the motive is a prior link in the chain, and a condition of the action. Our actions, moreover, take place in time; and time, as we conceive it, cannot be regarded as an absolute blank, but as a condition in which phenomena take place as past, present, and future.

Every act taking place in time implies something antecedent to itself; and this something, be it what it may, hinders us from regarding the subsequent act as absolute and unconditioned. Nay, even time itself, apart from the phenomena which it implies, has the same character. If an act cannot take place except in time, time is the condition of its taking place. To conceive the unconditioned, as the first link in a chain of conditioned consequences, it seems necessary that we should conceive something out of time, yet followed by time; standing at the beginning of all duration and succession, having no antecedent, but followed by a series of consequents.

Philosophical theologians have been conscious of this difficulty, almost from the earliest date at which philosophy and Christian theology came in contact with each other. From a number of testimonies of similar import, we select one or two of the most striking. Of the Divine Nature, Gregory Nyssen says: "It is neither in place nor in time, but before these and above these in an unspeakable manner, contemplated itself by itself, through faith alone; neither measured by ages, nor moving along with times."[B] "In the changes of things," says Augustine, "you will find a past and a future; in G.o.d you will find a present where past and future cannot be."[C] "Eternity," says Aquinas, "has no succession, but exists all together."[D] Among divines of the Church of England, we quote two names only, but those of the highest:--"The duration of eternity," says Bishop Pearson, "is completely indivisible and all at once; so that it is ever present, and excludes the other differences of time, past and future."[E] And Barrow enumerates among natural modes of being and operation far above our reach, "G.o.d's eternity without succession,"

coupling it with "His prescience without necessitation of events."[F]

But it is needless to multiply authorities for a doctrine so familiar to every student of theology.

[B] _C. Eunom._, i., p. 98, Ed. Gretser.

[C] _In Joann. Evang._, tract. x.x.xvii. 10.

[D] _Summa_, pars. i., qu. x., art. 1.

[E] _Minor Theol. Works_, vol. i., p. 105.

[F] Sermon on the Unsearchableness of G.o.d's Judgments.

Thus, then, our two lines of thought have led us to conclusions which, at first sight, appear to be contradictory of each other. To be conceived as unconditioned, G.o.d must be conceived as exempt from action in time: to be conceived as a person, if His personality resembles ours, He must be conceived as acting in time. Can these two conclusions be reconciled with each other; and if not, which of them is to be abandoned? The true answer to this question is, we believe, to be found in a distinction which some recent critics regard with very little favour,--the distinction between Reason and Faith; between the power of _conceiving_ and that of _believing_. We cannot, in our present state of knowledge, reconcile these two conclusions; yet we are not required to abandon either. We cannot conceive the manner in which the unconditioned and the personal are united in the Divine Nature; yet we may believe that, in some manner unknown to us, they are so united. To conceive the union of two attributes in one object of thought, I must be able to conceive them as united in some particular manner: when this cannot be done, I may nevertheless believe _that_ the union is possible, though I am unable to conceive _how_ it is possible. The problem is thus represented as one of those Divine mysteries, the character of which is clearly and well described in the language of Leibnitz:--"Il en est de meme des autres mysteres, ou les esprits moderes trouveront toujours une explication suffisante pour croire, et jamais autant qu'il en faut pour comprendre.

Il nous suffit d'un certain _ce que c'est_ ([Greek: ti esti]) mais le _comment_ ([Greek: pos]) nous pa.s.se, et ne nous est point necessaire."[G]

[G] _Theodicee, Discours de la Conformite de la Foi avec la Raison, -- 56._ Leibnitz, it will be observed, uses the expression _pour comprendre_, for which, in the preceding remarks, we have subst.i.tuted _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 lat.i.tude 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.)

But this distinction involves a further consequence. If the mysteries of the Divine Nature are not apprehended by reason as existing in a particular manner (in which case they would be mysteries no longer), but are accepted by faith as existing in some manner unknown to us, it follows that we do not know G.o.d as He is in His absolute nature, but only as He is imperfectly represented by those qualities in His creatures which are a.n.a.logous to, but not identical with, His own. If, for example, we had a knowledge of the Divine Personality as it is in itself, we should know it as existing in a certain manner compatible with unconditioned action; and this knowledge of the manner would at once transform our conviction from an act of faith to a conception of reason.

If, on the other hand, the only personality of which we have a positive knowledge is our own, and if our own personality can only be conceived as conditioned in time, it follows that the Divine Personality, in so far as it is exempt from conditions, does not resemble the only personality which we directly know, and is not adequately represented by it. This necessitates a confession, which, like the distinction which gives rise to it, has been vehemently condemned by modern critics, but which has been concurred in with singular unanimity by earlier divines of various ages and countries,--the confession that the knowledge which man in this life can have of G.o.d is not a knowledge of the Divine Nature as it is in itself, but only of that nature as imperfectly represented through a.n.a.logous qualities in the creature. Were it not that this doctrine has been frequently denounced of late as an heretical novelty, we should hardly have thought it necessary to cite authorities in proof of its antiquity and catholicity. As it is, we will venture to produce a few only out of many, selecting not always the most important, but those which can be best exhibited _verbatim_ in a short extract.

CHRYSOSTOM.--_De Incompr. Dei Natura_, Hom. i. 3: "_That_ G.o.d is everywhere, I know; and _that_ He is wholly everywhere, I know; but the _how_, I know not: _that_ He is without beginning, ungenerated and eternal, I know; but the _how_, I know not."

BASIL.--Ep. ccx.x.xiv.: "That G.o.d is, I know; but what is His essence I hold to be above reason. How then am I saved? By faith; and faith is competent to know that G.o.d is, not what He is."

GREGORY n.a.z.iANZEN.--Orat. x.x.xiv.: "A theologian among the Greeks [Plato] has said in his philosophy, that to conceive G.o.d is difficult, to express Him is impossible. ... But I say that it is impossible to express Him, and more impossible to conceive Him."

[Compare Patrick, _Works_, vol. iii., p. 39.]

CYRIL OF JERUSALEM.--Catech. vi. 2: "We declare not what G.o.d is, but candidly confess that we know not accurately concerning Him.

For in those things which concern G.o.d, it is great knowledge to confess our ignorance."

AUGUSTINE.--Enarr. in Psalm, lx.x.xv. 8: "G.o.d is ineffable; we more easily say what He is not than what He is." Serm, cccxli.: "I call G.o.d just, because in human words I find nothing better; for He is beyond justice.... What then is worthily said of G.o.d? Some one, perhaps, may reply and say, _that He is just._ But another, with better understanding, may say that even this word is surpa.s.sed by His excellence, and that even this is said of Him unworthily, though it be said fittingly according to human capacity."

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA.--_In Joann. Evang_., 1. ii., c. 5: "For those things which are spoken concerning it [the Divine Nature] are not spoken as they are in very truth, but as the tongue of man can interpret, and as man can hear; for he who sees in an enigma also speaks in an enigma."

DAMASCENUS.--_De Fide Orthod_., i. 4: "That G.o.d is, is manifest; but what He is in His essence and nature is utterly incomprehensible and unknown."

AQUINAS.--_Summa_, pars. i., qu. xiii., art. 1: "We cannot so name G.o.d that the name which denotes Him shall express the Divine Essence as it is, in the same way as the name _man_ expresses in its signification the essence of man as it is." _Ibid._, art. 5: "When the name _wise_ is said of a man, it in a manner describes and comprehends the thing signified: not so, however, when it is said of G.o.d; but it leaves the thing signified as uncomprehended and exceeding the signification of the name. Whence it is evident that this name _wise_ is not said in the same manner of G.o.d and of man. The same is the case with other names; whence no name can be predicated univocally of G.o.d and of creatures; yet they are not predicated merely equivocally.... We must say, then, that such names are said of G.o.d and of creatures according to a.n.a.logy, that is, proportion."

HOOKER.--_Ecc. Pol._, I., ii. 2.--"Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to make mention of His name, yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know Him not as indeed He is, neither can know Him."

USHER.--_Body of Divinity_, p. 45, Ed. 1645: "Neither is it [the wisdom of G.o.d] communicated to any creature, neither can be; for it is unconceivable, as the very essence of G.o.d Himself is unconceivable, and unspeakable as it is."

LEIGHTON.--Theol. Lect. XXI., _Works_, vol. iv., p. 327, Ed. 1830: "Though in the schools they distinguish the Divine attributes or excellences, and that by no means improperly, into communicable and incommunicable; yet we ought so to guard this distinction, as always to remember that those which are called communicable, when applied to G.o.d, are not only to be understood in a manner incommunicable and quite peculiar to Himself, but also, that in Him they are in reality infinitely different [in the original, _aliud omnino_, _immensum aliud_] from those virtues, or rather, in a matter where the disparity of the subjects is so very great, those shadows of virtues that go under the same name, either in men or angels."

PEARSON.--_Minor Theol. Works_, vol. i., p. 13: "G.o.d in Himself is an absolute being, without any relation to creatures, for He was from eternity without any creature, and could, had He willed, be to eternity without creature. But G.o.d cannot naturally be known by us otherwise than by relation to creatures, as, for example, under the aspect of dominion, or of cause, or in some other relation."[H]

BEVERIDGE.--_On the Thirty-nine Articles_, p. 16, Ed. 1846: "But seeing the properties of G.o.d do not so much denote what G.o.d is, as what we apprehend Him to be in Himself; when the properties of G.o.d are predicated one of another, one thing in G.o.d is not predicated of another, but our apprehensions of the same thing are predicated one of another."

LESLIE.--_Method with the Deists_, p. 63, Ed. 1745: "What we call _faculties_ in the soul, we call _Persons_ in the G.o.dhead; because there are personal actions attributed to each of them.... And we have no other word whereby to express it; we speak it after the manner of men; nor could we understand if we heard any of those unspeakable words which express the Divine Nature in its proper essence; therefore we must make allowances, and great ones, when we apply words of our nature to the Infinite and Eternal Being."

_Ibid._, p. 64: "By the word _Person_, when applied to G.o.d (for want of a proper word whereby to express it), we must mean something infinitely different from personality among men."

[H] Bishop Pearson's language is yet more explicit in another pa.s.sage of the same work, which we give in the original Latin:--"Non dantur pro hoc statu nomina quae Deum significant quidditative. Patet; quia nomina sunt conceptuum. Non autem dantur in hoc statu conceptus quidditativi de Deo."--(P. 136.)