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unequal, &c., the reality of one of the contradictories is nothing else than 
a negation of the other. “ The negative concept,” he says (“ First Prin- 
ciples,” p. 90), “ contains something besides the negation of the positive one. 
Take, for example, the limited and the unlimited. Our notion of the 
limited is composed, first, of a consciousness of some kind of being, and, 
secondly, of a consciousness of the limits under which it is known. In the 
antithetical notion of the unlimited, the consciousness of limits is abolished, 
but not the consciousness of some kind of being The error 
consists in assuming that consciousness contains nothing but limits and 
conditions, to the entire neglect of that which is limited and conditioned. 
It is forgotten that there is something which alike forms the raw material of 
definite thought, and remains after the definiteness which thinking gave it 
has been destroyed.” 
Thus Mr. Spencer admits that the unlimited has some kind of existence, 
and so of the unconditioned, the infinite, and the absolute. In short, he 
holds that there is a First Cause, but maintains that it is impossible for us to 
have any knowledge of it whatever. But notwithstanding its being thus 
utterly unknowable, he professes to know one thing about it at any rate, 
and that is, that it is impersonal. Dean Mansel, on the other hand, con- 
siders it our duty to believe it to be personal. And his reasoning is, that as 
we find ourselves involved in metaphysical contradictions when we endeavour 
to conceive this First Cause, the matter is beyond our understanding, and it 
is our duty to direct our thoughts only to what we can understand. He 
distinguishes between mystery and contradiction , pointing out that the 
apparent contradictions attending a mystery (such as the question, how 
unextended objects can by their conjunction produce extension, or how the 
motions of the material particles of our bodies can result in consciousness) 
extend in both directions ; that is to say, the propositions with which they 
are concerned are such that we are equally involved in absurdities, whether 
we affirm, or deny them. “ Contradiction,” he says (Lecture V ., p. 99), 
“ does not begin till we direct our thoughts, not to the fact itself, but to that 
which it suggests as beyond itself. This difference is precisely that which 
exists between following the laws of thought, and striving to transcend them ; 
between leaving the mystery of knowing and being unsolved, and making 
unlawful attempts to solve it. Thus the highest principles of thought and 
action to which we can attain are regulative , not speculative — they do not 
serve to satisfy the reason, but to guide the conduct ; they do not tell us 
what things are in themselves, but how we must conduct ourselves in 
relation to them.” 
There is, I conceive, no inconsistency between Dean Mansel’s speculative 
and regulative principles of thought and action, as thus explained by him. 
The former being beyond our intellectual vision, it is to the latter alone that 
we must give our attention. And among these latter are the grounds (amply 
stated by the Dean, especially in his fourth lecture) for looking upon the 
First Cause as having the attribute of personality. It may be a question, 
however, how far he was judicious in dwelling so much as he has done upon 
