5382 INTELLECTUAL SYMBOLISM. 
ambiguity in his letter to Mr. Henry Calderwood, in which he remarks, “that there is a 
fundamental difference between The Infinite (xo #y xa: Ma), and a relation to which we may 
203% 
apply the term dnfincte. We can reason correctly about the relatively infinite, but not 
about the absolutely infinite, which is devoid of all relation, even of the relations of 
unity, reality, and conceivability.t+ 
263. Hamilton evidently uses the term conceivable in a narrower sense than many 
other philosophical writers, and I am inclined to believe that if his meaning were made 
perfectly clear, the truth of his Law of the Conditioned, “ that the conceivable is in every 
relation bounded by the inconceivable,” would be generally admitted. In the letter which 
has just been quoted, he says, ‘‘ What I have said as to the infinite being (subjectively) 
inconceivable, does not at all derogate from our belief of its (objective) reality. In fact, 
the main scope of my speculation is to show articulately that we must believe as actual, 
much that we are unable (positively) to conceive, as even possible.”{ But when he says 
that “though space must be admitted to be necessarily either finite or infinite, we are 
able to conceive the possibility neither of its finitude, nor of its infinity,”§ he seems to be 
struggling with a perplexity that might have been avoided, if his ideas had been more 
clearly defined. | 
* Metaphysics, p. 685. See also Kant’s Observations on the First Antinomy. 
{ In designating unity, reality, and conceivability as relations, I do not refer to the category of relation, but to 
the idea of relativity which underlies all human thought, and which Hamilton regarded as conditioning every ob- 
ject of thought. Thus, in what seems a petitio principiil, he says (Discussions, p. 21), “Thought is only of the 
conditioned ; because as we have said, to think is simply to condition. The absolute is conceived merely by a 
negation of conceivability, and all that we know, is only known as 
——‘won from the void and formless znfinite.’ 
“How, indeed, it could ever be doubted that thought is only of the conditioned, may well be deemed a matter 
of the profoundest admiration. Thought cannot transcend consciousness; consciousness is only possible under the 
antithesis of a subject and object of thought, known only in correlation, and mutually limiting each other; while, 
independently of this, all that we know either of subject or object, either of mind or matter, is only a knowledge 
in each of the particular, of the plural, of the different, of the modified, of the phenomenal.” 
How will these remarks apply when the subject and object are one,—the subject thinking of itself? We cer- 
tainly can think of the unconditioned, the absolute, the infinite, even if we are obliged to condition them in our 
endeavors to understand them. All relative infinites are certainly included in absolute infinites, and in some 
sense as parts of the absolute. Can the effort to abstract all relativity, and thus arrive at an Absolute or Uncon- 
ditioned, result in anything else than the Hegelian 0, or Hamilton’s Mihi purum ? Can anything exist except 
in relations, either internal or external? Is there a Unity that embraces Infinite Space, Eternity, Matter, Mind, 
Possibility, Relation, and Truth, but is yet neither of these, and in no relation to either? Such is certainly not 
the teaching of revelation, or of any intelligible philosophy. [For some excellent remarks on the relations of the 
Infinite, see Catherwood, pp. 108 e¢ seq.] 
{ Metaphysics, p. 687. By a “ positive conception,” Hamilton evidently means a complete or adequate notion. 
§ Ibid. p. 527. 
