limiting him, for I think myself as dependent on him, as his product, effect, or creature, and him as my cause or creator. The mistake of Sir William arises from his not considering that the only conceivable relation between the finite and infinite, the conditioned and the unconditioned, or, as we prefer to say, between existence (from ex-stare) and being (ens secundum quid and ens simpliciter), is the relation of the effect to the cause, or of creature to creator, and therefore cannot be thought as a relation of reciprocity, but as a relation in which the former term is related to the latter, though the latter is not related in se to the former. Consequently we never can think ourselves as limiting or conditioning the infinite object, but must always think it as conditioning or placing us. If Sir William had considered the thought not solely as a fact of consciousness, that is, on its subjective side, as a conception, but in the real existence thought, he never could have denied our ability to think the unconditioned, that is, real, necessary, and infinite being, for he would have seen that we have intuition of it in every thought, and could not think a single thought if we had not.

"The illustrious Scotsman tells us that our conception of the infinite, the unconditioned, is negative. Negative of what? Of the conditioned? But the conditioned can be denied only by proposing its contradictory, that is, the unconditioned. Of the unconditioned? Then it is the denial of the unconditioned by the positive conception of the conditioned. But the conditioned affirms, not denies, the unconditioned, since without the unconditioned the conditioned is not cogitable. We confess, then, that we are totally unable to understand the process by which the learned and acute professor derives the judgment of causuality from our inability to think the unconditioned, or from the negative conception of real and necessary being. Our inability to think the absolute commencement of existence, must, according to his own statements, be regarded as resulting from the fact that we think contingent existence as originating in the non-contingent, that is, in real and necessary being. We should, therefore, reverse his doctrine, and say that the judgment of causality originates in our ability, not in our inability; in the fact that we can and do think both the unconditioned and the conditioned, and always think the latter as the effect or creation of the former, that is, from our ability to think things as they really exist; and the only inability to be noted in the case is our inability to think things, and not to think them in their real relations.

"But denying that we have any intuition of the unconditioned, or, as we prefer to say, of the Ideal or the Intelligible, and yet maintaining that we do and must believe it, Sir William is obliged to represent the judgement of causality as simply a belief, though a primitive and necessary belief, in which he coincides with Reid,

and does not differ essentially from Kant. He denies it to be a fact of science, and boldly takes the ground that the first principles of our knowledge can in no instance be themselves objects of cognition, mediate or immediate. He admits a vouç or noetic faculty in man, the intellectus of the Latins, and the Vernunft of the recent German philosophers, but he makes it the locus or place of first principles, rather than the power of apprehending them objectively in immediate intuition. They are then beliefs, not cognitions, and beliefs which not only cannot be demonstrated, but of which we have and can have no objective evidence. They are therefore purely subjective; and as all science must repose on them, and follow their law, all our science is purely subjective, as Hume maintained. Hence Sir William Hamilton, decidedly the most learned man of the Scottish school, and the first metaphysician in Great Britain, coinciding with Reid and Kant, leaves us in the same speculative doubt in which Hume himself had left us. The Scottish school, which originated in the laudable attempt to refute that doubt, and to reconcile philosophy and common sense, has then undeniably failed."-Brownson's Quar. Review, 1855, pp. 455-463.

Sir William Hamilton has, perhaps, served philosophy; but if so, it has been by showing the abyss into which it leads us, when we start with the assumption that the whole productive force of thought is on the side of the subject, and that the form of the thought depends on the subject, not on the object; which is really only another form of expressing the doctrine of Fichte, in his Wissenschaftslehre.

We find with Mr. Mansel's work very much the same fault that we find with the Traditionalists. He builds science on faith; or, rather, demolishes reason in order to prove the necessity of revelation. We assert as strenuously as any man ever did, or ever can, the necessity of revelation, -but necessary to what, and for what reason? Necessary to supply the defects of reason in the natural order? No; for the existence of God, and what are called his natural attributes, the immateriality and immortality of the soul, free will, and moral obligation, the fundamental truths of natural religion, or Natural Theology, can be proved with certainty by natural reason, and are presupposed by revelation, and constitute the preamble to faith. Indeed, throw doubt on these, and no revelation is, or can be, provable.

We can never say with certainty it is God who speaks, if it be uncertain that there is a God, or if there is, that he can neither deceive nor be deceived; nor, indeed, if it be doubtful whether we are bound to obey God when he commands, can we prove that we are obliged to believe and observe his revelation when made. Why, then, is revelation necessary? It is necessary simply because God has seen proper to appoint man to a supernatural destiny, or has created for him, and requires him to enter, a supernatural order of life, the end of which is to see and enjoy him in the beatific vision. Prescind the supernatural order of life founded by the God-Man, and no necessity for a supernatural revelation can be alleged; for, in that case, no other guide than natural reason would be needed. It is the neglect to make this distinction that causes all the real or apparent contradiction between faith and reason. Reason is our natural light and guide, and it would be a contradiction in terms to deny its sufficiency in relation to a purely natural destiny, and it is only on the supposition of a supernatural destiny, that another and a higher guide becomes

necessary.

The difficulty felt by most Rationalists is, that the advocates of faith, as they suppose, deny the sufficiency of natural reason for a natural destiny, and make it in its own order give place to supernatural revelation. This is, it seems to us, precisely what our author does, and in doing it he outrages reason. In showing the insufficiency of reason, he makes no distinction between the natural and supernatural orders, and gives no intimation, as far as we have seen, that the insufficiency he asserts is only in relation to the supernatural. He denies the power of reason to attain to the first. truths of natural, or what he in his terminology calls metaphysical, theology, and therefore denies the reality of such theology. Here he is wrong. Reason is really insufficient only in relation to the supernatural, that is, the supernatural order. But grant such order, and no man of common sense will deny that, in relation to it, reason must be insufficient. If it pleases God to found a supernatural order of life

for man, it is clear that, if he intends man to live it, he must furnish him supernatural light and supernatural strength.

Reason alone is not able to demonstrate her own deficiency or the necessity of a revelation. We learn the necessity of revelation from the revelation itself, and we learn the deficiency of reason from the same revelation, which teaches us that God has, in his infinite goodness, prepared for us a supernatural destiny, far above that which is attainable by our natural faculties alone. We should, then, never begin by denying reason to be sufficient, in case man had only a natural destiny, but by establishing the fact that he has a supernatural destiny, and that therefore, in relation to that, reason must necessarily be insufficient. Let us not be met with the remark, that though this might have been so in the origin, it is not so since the Fall. Man is now born under original sin, from which all his faculties have suffered, and they no longer suffice, without reparation, for even the natural end. Man, by the Fall, suffered severely in being violently divested of his supernatural gifts and graces, but he did not lose reason and free will. He retained after the Fall his natural moral powers-all that would have been necessary to gain natural beatitude, in case he had been created and left in a state of pure nature, otherwise he would be incapable of sinning till regenerated. Men, prior to regeneration, are under the natural law, and with gratia Dei, as distinguished from gratia Christi, must be physically and morally able to keep it, or else they could not be amenable to it or be judged by it. By the Fall, man lost his superadded power of gaining a supernatural end, but not his faculty of keeping the natural law. Any contrary doctrine smacks more or less of the error of Luther and Calvin, or of Baius and Jansenius. The understanding became darkened by the Fall, we grant, but negatively, in relation to the supernatural, not positively, or intrinsically as purely natural reason; the will became attenuated or weakened, but only in the same sense. The flesh escaped from its original subjection, but reason and will were still strong enough to control it, if put forth in all their strength; and

although virtue was henceforth a combat, it nevertheless continued to be possible.

There is no doubt but revelation, even in relation to the natural law, is highly useful-more especially to the mass of mankind, as St. Thomas teaches. The revelation of the supernatural throws a flood of light on the natural, and we can, under grace, more easily understand and fulfil the requirements of the natural law, than we could if left to nature alone. But this utility is something very different from necessity. Pelagius, prescinding the supernatural order of life, was right, in saying that grace simply enables us to do more easily what, however, is possible to do without it. His error was the virtual denial of the supernatural order of life and immortality brought to light through the Gospel, and in recognizing for man only a natural destiny. Our author inclines to the error of Jansenius, which, after all, coincides with the Pelagian as to our final destiny. It really places our destiny in the natural order, but considers man's natural powers so corrupted and impaired by original sin that we can now do nothing of ourselves to attain it. Men of ordinary good sense find such teaching contradictory, and even absurd. The natural strikes them as unduly depressed, and the supernatural as a small and vexatious affair. God was free to create man or not, as seemed to him good; but he could not, consistently with his own wisdom and goodness, create any being for a natural destiny, and not endow him with the necessary faculties to gain it. Moreover, to tell a man that, though he originally had them, he has lost them through original sin, is not to help the matter, because, in the commission of that sin, he had no actual part. It is no fault of mine that Adam sinned, for I was not then born; and to punish me for a sin of which I am not guilty is unjust, and God cannot be unjust. That I should be deprived, through Adam's fault, of a gratuitous gift to him, which would have passed to all his posterity if he had been faithful, I can understand, because, in that case, I am deprived of nothing that was ever due to my nature as a man; but to deprive me, through Adam's fault, of my essential faculties as a man, VOL. I.-No. II.

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