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the principle of contradiction, or more correctly, the principle of non-contradiction. It is this: A thing can not be and not be at the same time; Alpha est, Alpha non est, are propositions which can not both be true at once. A second fundamental law of thought, or rather the principle of contradiction viewed in a certain aspect, is called the principle of excluded middle between two contradictories. A thing either is or it is notaut est Alpha aut non est; there is no medium; one must be true, both can not. These principles require, indeed admit of, no proof. They prove every thing, but are proved by nothing. All that is conceivable in thought, lies between two extremes, which, as contradictory of each other, can not both be true, but of which, as mutual contradictories, one must." This is his general statement, which he proceeds to apply and make good by an exceedingly fresh and interesting discussion of our ideas of space and time, which he asseverates are not, and can not, be conceived of by us, as either bounded or unbounded, and hence equally removed from the finite and the infinite. Yet, in the last analysis they are, they must be, either the one or the other, either limited or unlimited. Only one of these hypotheses can possibly be true. This is what he calls "the Exclusive Middle Term," which comprehends, includes all our knowledge of such subjects; so bounded and limited are the faculties of man, so lame and impotent are his conclusions.

Here, then, as in a nutshell, we have the kernel of Sir William Hamilton's philosophy, the last word of the latest and greatest of the modern metaphysicians our language and lineage can boast of. What shall we say of it? Is it satisfactory? Is it conclusive? The answers returned will vary with the varying standpoints of individual minds. The religious bearings of this philosophy have already been presented in a volume by Professor Mansel, of Oxford, a work of rare ability, which we notice below, and to which we refer for our opinion of this aspect of the subject.

Metaphysically, it has much to recommend it, for it is stated. with the neatness, precision, and clearness which always characterize this illustrious author, but never more so, than when his thought culminates in this conclusion. The arguments he

adduces are also marked by the same vigor. The philosopher advances with a self-poised assurance and firm step. His movements are so easy as to inspire confidence both in the safety of the way over which he conducts us, and the security of the haven where he leaves us. Yet we are not entirely at our ease, though the fault may be our own. A doubt is excited, however, by the recollection that other philosophers, may we not say the most gifted as well as most numerous, have taken a different route and reached another bay with a more pleasing prospect and a clearer horizon. Fundamentally considered, it is the old difference between Sir William Hamilton and his cotemporary, Cousin, between Locke and Leibnitz, between Plato and Aristotle.

Briefly stated it is this. Has man any knowledge of the absolute, the infinite, or does he mistake the indefinite for it? This is the conjecture of our author. He denies that man has any conception of the infinite, quoting Pascal, who says that "the infinite is infinitely incomprehensible." And these are the weighty words of well-attuned minds, of profound thinkers.

On the other hand, Cousin, with no less learning and with equal genius, argues in favor of the opposite conclusion, as the glory of man achieved by the unalloyed apperceptions of his pure reason undisturbed by aught ab extra, a view in which he is ably sustained both by his masters and his disciples.

Surely such points of difference in minds of such calibre should make us pause and ponder well the several positions, as well as the considerations that seem to establish them. For ourselves, unable to assent wholly to either, we instinctively seek for a "via media" in which we may walk more safely than over either of these opposing routes of general travel. Let us grant, for example, that man can not conceive of the absolute and infinite in the sense of comprehending it, may it not be true, is it not true, that he has an apprehension of it? To say that it is not positive knowledge, in the sense of comprehension, is only to state the self-evident truth that the finite can not comprehend the infinite. Again, granted that man has not innate ideas, it is yet certain that he has innate faculties of ideas, "which have

their beginning, indeed, in experience, but their origin in the mind itself." Once more, Sir William Hamilton's view of space and time depends on his regarding them as entities. But is not the premise itself an assumption unsupported and insupportable? Suppose we deny that they are entities, and consider them only as conditions of our existence and of our knowledge of the existence of other entities. Then ceasing to be entities, neither finitude nor infinity can be predicated of either. Such terms become at once inapplicable to them, and so we cut the gordian knot which philosophers have so long essayed in vain to untie.

This is what Sir William Hamilton himself resorts to in treating of causality, assuming a new and middle ground between the old disputants, a position which, in this case, we think wholly untenable, and the least satisfactory of all.

Neither the interests of religion, nor the facts of consciousness, nor the dicta of philosophers, will tolerate a position of neutrality here. It is the battle-field of the ages, the Italy of polemics, both theological and philosophical. But for this very reason, we can not enter upon a discussion of it at the close of a notice already too long. We defer it, therefore, to another, merely indicating our belief that both the evidences and the interests, as well of philosophy as of religion, fully confirm the popular belief that in all changes in man or nature, over and above antecedent and consequent, there is present in the mind an idea of an originating cause of the change, an idea to which we have no doubt there is an actual counterpart in natural phenomena.

We observe, it is true, changes continually commenced and continued without the intervention of spiritual agents, so far as the testimony of the senses goes, but all the time the mind of man unbiased by theory and unwarped by prejudice, affirms that throughout the universe all changes originate in a will or spiritual force, finite or infinite.

It affirms this with the same assurance and by virtue of the same faculties that it affirms three angles of a triangle to be equal to two right angles. The affirmation in both cases is VOL. VI.-28

traceable to a logical necessity to which the mind is reduced by the laws of its own constitution.

In a word, the opposite argument is as feeble as the senses on which it is based; while this, is as reliable as the mental constitution of which God is the sole author. The only escape from it is found in a denial of the veracity of our highest facul ties and consciousness, which is a virtual impeachment of the veracity of God Himself.

THEOLOGY.*

It was John Foster, we believe, who said that man has no right to deny the divine existence unless he knows that there is no God, and that no one can know this without knowing all things—a prerogative of God only. Similar to this is the reasoning of Professor Mansel in his "Limits of Religious Thought." The reasoning is based on Sir William Hamilton's theory of the Absolute and Infinite, which as we have seen he declares it impossible for man to know. Some one has said that Prof. Mansel's book is equal to Bishop Butler's. But such an opinion, however flattering to Professor Mansel, is not very complimentary to the discernment of its author. The Analogy of Bishop Butler, in its essential features, has a basis no less firm than the "Constitution and Course of Nature." Professor Mansel's book derives its animus from an able metaphysical theory, and will live or die with its original. Bishop Butler's work has never been answered, and can never be refuted. Professor Mansel's will be assailed by numerous critics, and can scarcely escape unscathed. All Christians accept the conclu sions of the great Bishop, but all believers will not be equally pleased with the lucubrations of Professor Mansel, because not satisfied with the metaphysical theory on which it is based. In fine, Bishop Butler's Analogy is the ablest work of the kind in the English or any language, and will be read with equal interest in every age. Professor Mansel's book is interesting to us, but may be shelved by the next generation, as hundreds of similar treatises have been. Yet we doubt not that it will

THE LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT EXAMINED. In Eight Lectures delivered before the Uni. versity of Oxford. By HENRY LONGUEVI LLE MANSEL, B.D. 1859. Boston: Gould & Lincoln.

render essential service in this generation to the cause of historic Christianity. It is as learned as the most popular works of a skeptical tendency, and foils them with their own weapons. It at least will remind the readers of such works that Sir Roger de Coverley was fortunate in his discovery that there are two sides to every question, and that much may be said on both sides,

And this brings out our cardinal objection, not so much to Professor Mansel as to Sir William Hamilton. He is too impartial. That is to say, he makes, or seeks to make it appear, that in processes of thought the difficulties of the Christian are as great as those of the unbeliever; that the objections to Christian conclusions are as insurmountable, from a purely intellectual standpoint, as to those which are unchristian or antiChristian. In his system, both fate and free-will, matter and spirit, the absolute and its opposite, these and all kindred questions, are involved in inextricable mazes and endless contradictions. We are indeed compelled to accept some conclusions instead of others, but this by a moral rather than a logical necessity. On the field of argument, the fatalist, the pantheist, the atheist, are as unassailable as the advocates of freewill, theism, and man's immortality. In these matters, the only conclusion we can come to is one which concludes nothing respecting them, or at the most, that though one or the other must be true, we know not which. This is what we have called in the above notice of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, "a lame and impotent conclusion." We do not, we can not accept it. We admit the inevitable antagonism of opposing systems, but not that the reasoning on the one side is as conclusive as on the other. We allow, even, that in nature there is much to sustain Sir William Hamilton's "Law of Contradiction." But the difference is not fundamental; not real, but only apparent; not actual, but phenomenal; not eternal, but temporal; yet it is so obvious as to have made it possible for philosophers of all ages to take opposite views in regard to the great problem of man and of the universe. What we contend for is that the contradictions are not parallel or equal; and that consequently the opposing arguments of hostile

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