Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation. Jesse Henry Jones
obligation? Whence does it arise, or how is it imposed? and who will enforce it, and how will it be enforced? All these, and numerous such other questions, cannot be raised even by the Understanding, much less answered by it. The moral law of the Universe is one which can be learned from no judgment, or combination of judgments. It can be learned only by being seen. The moral law is no conclusion, which may be modified by a subsequent experience. It is an affirmation which is imperative. To illustrate. It is an axiom, that the fact of free moral agency involves the fact of obligation. Man is a free moral agent; and so, under the obligation imposed. At the first, it was optional with the Deity whether he would create man or not. But will any one assert that, having determined to create man such as he is, it was optional with him, whether man should be under the obligation, or not? Can man be a free moral agent, and be free from the duties inherent therein? Does not the mind instinctively and necessarily affirm, that the fact of free moral agency assures the fact of such a relation to God's moral government, that obligation must follow? One cannot hesitate to say, that the formula, A free agent may be released from his obligation to moral law, is absolutely unthinkable.
Again, no judgment can attain to the moral law of the Universe; and yet man knows it. Jesus Christ, when he proclaimed that law in the words "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself," only uttered what no man can, in thought, deny. A man can no more think selfishness as the moral law of the Universe, than he can think two and two to be five. Man not only sees the law, but he feels and acknowledges the obligation, even in his rebellion. In fact there would be no rebellion, no sense of sin, if there were no obligation. Whence comes the authority of the law? No power can give it authority, or enforce obedience. Power can crush a Universe, it cannot change a heart. The law has, and can have authority; it imposes, and can impose obligation; only because it is an a priori law of the Universe, alike binding upon all moral beings, upon God as well as man; and is so seen immediately, and necessarily, by a direct intuition. Man finds this law fundamental to his self; and as well, a necessarily fundamental law of all moral beings. Therefore he acknowledges it. And the very efforts he makes to set up a throne for Passion, over against the throne of Benevolence, is an involuntary acknowledgment of the authority of that law he seeks to rival.
It was said above, that neither Sense nor Understanding can take any cognizance of the objects of investigation which fall in this class. This is because the Sense can gather no material over which the Understanding can run. Is the moral law matter? No. How then can the Sense observe it? One answer may possibly be made, viz.: It is deduced from the conduct of men; and sense observes that. To this it is replied
a. The allegation is not true. Most men violate the moral law of the Universe. Their conduct accords with the law of selfishness. Such conclusions as that of Hobbes, that war is the natural condition of Society, are those which would follow from a consideration of man, as he appears to the Sense.
b. If it were true, the question obtrudes itself—How came it there? How came this fundamental law to be? and to this the Sense and Understanding return no shadow of answer.
But from the stand-point of a Pure Reason, all is clear. All the ideas and beliefs, every process of thought which belongs to this sphere, are absolute and universal. They must be what they are; and so are conditional of all moral beings. Here what the human mind sees, is just what the Deity sees; and it sees just as the Divine mind sees, so that the truth, as far as so seen, is common to both.
Although the facts which have been adduced above, are inexplicable by the Limitists, and are decisive of the actuality of the Reason, as it has been heretofore described, yet another line of argument of great wight must not be omitted. There are in language certain positive terms, which the Limitists, and the advocates of the Reason agree in asserting cannot convey any meaning to, or be explained by the Sense and Understanding. Such are the words infinite and absolute. The mere presence of such words in language, as positive terms, is a decisive evidence of the fact, that there is also a faculty which entertains positive ideas corresponding to them. Sir William Hamilton's position in this matter, is not only erroneous, but astonishing. He asserts that these words express only "negative notions." "They," the infinite and absolute, "can be conceived only by a thinking away from, or abstraction of, those very conditions under which thought itself is realized; consequently, the notion of the Unconditioned is only negative—negative of the conceivable itself." But, if this is true, how came these words in the language at all? Negative ideas produce negative expressions. Indeed, the Limitists are confidently challenged to designate another case in language, in which a positive term can be alleged to have a purely negative signification. Take an illustration to which we shall recur further on. The question has been raised, whether a sixth sense can be. Can the Limitists find in language, or can they construct, a positive term which will represent the negation of a sixth sense? We find in language the positive terms, ear and hearing; but can such positive terms be found, which will correspond to the phrase, no sixth sense? In this instance, in physics, the absurdity is seen at once. Why is not as readily seen the equal absurdity of affirming that, in metaphysics, positive terms have grown up in the language which are simple negations? Here, for the present, the presentation of facts may rest. Let us recapitulate those which have been adduced. The axioms in mathematics, the principles of the relations of being, the laws of æsthetics, and most of all the whole system of principles pertaining to morals and religion, standing, as they do, a series of mental affirmations, which all mankind, except the Limitists, qualify as necessary and universal, compel assent to the proposition, that there must be a faculty different in kind from the Sense and Understanding—for these have already been found impotent—which can be ground to account of all these facts satisfactorily. And the presence in language of such positive terms as absolute and infinite, is a most valuable auxiliary argument. The faculty which is required—the faculty which qualifies all the products of its activity with the characteristics above named, is the Pure Reason. And its actuality may therefore be deemed established.
The Pure Reason having thus been proved to be, it is next required to show the mode of its activity. This can best be done, by first noticing the kind of results which it produces. The Reason gives us, not thoughts, but ideas. These are simple, pure, primary, necessary. It is evident that any such object of mental examination can be known only in, and by, itself. It cannot be analyzed, for it is simple. It cannot be compared, for it is pure; and so possesses no element which can be ground for a comparison. It cannot be deduced, for it is primary and necessary. It can only be seen. Such an object must be known under the following circumstances. It must be inherent in the seeing faculty, and must be immediately and directly seen by that faculty; all this in such a manner, that the abstraction of the object seen, would annihilate the faculty itself. Now, how is it with the Reason? Above we found it to be both capacity and faculty: capacity in that it possessed as integral elements, a priori first principles, as objects of sight; faculty in that it saw, brought forward, and made available, those principles. The mode of activity of the Pure Reason is then a seeing, direct, immediate, sure; which holds pure truth fast, right in the very centre of the field of vision. This act of the Reason in thus seeing pure truth is best denominated an intuition of the Reason. And here it may be said—If perception and perceive could be strictly confined to the Sense; concept and conceive to the Understanding; and intuition and intuit to the Reason, a great gain would be made in accuracy of expression regarding these departments of the mind.
Having thus, as it is believed, established the fact of the existence of a Pure Reason, and shown the mode of its activity, it devolves to declare the function of that faculty.
The function of the Pure Reason is, first:—to intuit, by an immediate perception, the a priori elemental principles which condition all being; second—to intuit, by a like immediate perception, those principles, combined in a priori systematic processes, which are the conditional ideal forms for all being; and third—again to intuit, by another immediate perception, precisely similar in kind to the others, the fact, at least, of the perfectly harmonious combination of all a priori elemental principles, in all possible systematic processes, into a perfect unity—an absolute, infinite Person—God.
To illustrate.
1. The Reason asserts