432 KANSAS CITY REVIEW. OF SCIENCE. 
conditions, and the limits and nature of human conceptions in the direction of the 
Infinite and Absolute. We cannot take a better point from which to project this 
inquiry than the deliverances of this philosophy, and its quotations from others 
upon which it relies for support. 
We find it quoting extensively from Sir William Hamilton and Mr. Mansel, 
certain of their conclusions on the subject, in which they have given their great 
names and high authority to grave errors, which underly that mysticism of modern 
times, which has corrupted philosophy in its sources, given to scientific truth a 
shadow of uncertainty, and to religion an unbelief that is a fruitful source of im- 
morality. : i 
Sir William Hamilton, in his essay on the ‘‘ Philosophy of the Uncondition- 
ed,” holds this language. ‘‘ The mind can conceive, and consequently can know, 
only the limited and the conditionally limited. The unconditionally unlimited, or 
the Infinite, the unconditionally limited, or the Absolute, can not be positively 
construed to the mind; they can be conceived only by thinking away from, or ab- 
straction of, those very conditions under which thought itself is realized. Conse- 
quently the notion of the unconditioned is only negative—negative of the con- 
ceivable itself.” To the doctrine that the mind can conceive of no more than 
‘<the limited and the conditionally limited ” all must subscribe; but the doctrine 
that the mind can attain to a conception of any kind whatever, by ‘‘ thinking 
away from, or abstraction of those very conditions under which thought itself is 
realized,” represent the mind as transcending its conditions, and is absurd. And 
that it can entertain a notion that is ‘‘ negative of the conceivable itself” is equal 
ly so, for it represents the mind as conceiving an inconceivable nothing. Again 
he says: ‘‘ As the conditionally limited (which we may briefly call the condition- 
ed), is thus the only possible object of knowledge and of positive thought—thought 
necessarily supposes conditions. To think is to condition; and conditional limi- 
tation is the fundamental law of the possibility of thought. For as the greyhound 
cannot outstrip his shadow, nor (by a more appropriate simile) the eagle outsoar 
the atmosphere in which he floats, and by which alone he is supported; so the 
mind cannot transcend that sphere of limitations, within and through which ex- 
clusively the possibility of thought is realized.” To this likewise, all must sub_ 
scribe, but, this being true, how can the mind, by ‘‘ thinking away from, or ab- 
straction of, those very conditions under which thought itself is realized,” attained 
to a notion that is the ‘‘ negative of the conceivable itself?” It is wonderful that 
so great a mind as that of Sir Wiliam Hamilton could have fallen into so grave 
and palpable a contradiction. But, to quote further, he says: ‘‘ The conditioned 
is the mean between two extremes, two inconditionates, exclusive of each other, 
neither of which can be conceived as possible, but of which, on the principles of 
contradiction and excluded middle, one must be admitted as necessary.” Can 
any thing be more wonderful than that so great a logician should thus apply a law 
of logic to prove that which this same law condemns as impossible? Can any- 
thing be more absurd than to hold that the law of the mind requires, it to admit 
