Volume 1

First principles / by Herbert Spencer.

  • Spencer, Herbert, 1820-1903.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: First principles / by Herbert Spencer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    92/252 (page 68)
    or rather it is contended, by the writers I have quoted above, that contradictories can be known only in relation to each other— that Equality, for instance, is unthinkable apart from Inequality ; and that thus the Relative can itself be conceived only by opposi- tion to the Non-relative. It is also admitted, or rather contended, that the consciousness of a relation implies a consciousness of both the related terms. If we are required to conceive the relation between the Relative and Non-relative without being conscious of both, “ we are in fact ” (to quote the words of Mr. Mansel differently applied) “ required to compare that of which we are conscious with that of which we are not conscious ; the comparison itself being an act of con- sciousness, and only possible through the consciousness of both its objects.” What then becomes of the assertion that “ the Absolute is conceived merely by a negation of conceivability,” or as “ the mere absence of the conditions under which consciousness is possible ? ” If the Non-relative or Absolute is present in thought only as a mere negation, then the relation between it and the Relative becomes un- thinkable, because one of the terms of the relation is absent from consciousness. And if this relation is unthinkable, then is the Relative itself unthinkable, for want of its antithesis; whence results the disappearance of all thought whatever. Both Sir William Hamilton and Mr. Mansel do, in other places, distinctly imply that our consciousness of the Absolute, indefinite though it is, is positive. The very passage in which Sir William Hamilton asserts that “the absolute is conceived merely by a negation of conceivability,” itself ends with the remark that, “ by a wonderful revelation we are thus, in the very consciousness of our inability to conceive aught above the relative and finite, inspired with a belief in the existence of something unconditioned beyond the sphere of all comprehensible reality.” The last of these assertions practically admits that which the first denies. By the laws of thought as Sir William Hamilton interprets them, he finds himself forced to the conclusion that our consciousness of the Absolute is a pure negation. He nevertheless finds that there does exist in consciousness an irresistible conviction of the real “existence of something unconditioned.” And he gets over the inconsistency by speaking of this conviction as “ a wonderful revelation,”—“a belief” with which we are “inspired”: thus