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PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY LAXING & CONKLIN, | NEW YORK & BALTIMORE \ Fidelity to immutable principles of Justice, Truth and R ight! (FIFT Y CENTS A YEAR, IN ADVANCE Infidelity to all forms of mutable wrong and error. ( SINGLE COPY, FIVE CENTS. V O L U M E I I . N E W Y O R K & B A L T I M O R E , J U N E , 1 8 5 8 , N U M B E R 7 . T he Offices of T he P r in c ipl e are a t New York and Baltimore. All Subscriptions should be directed to L aning & C o n k l in , 469 Broadway, New York City. Particular care should be taken to giv* the name of the Post Office, County and State, as well as the name of the subscriber, in a clear legible hand. The circulation of The P r in c ipl e is now sufficiently exten sive to render it an excellent medium for advertisers. We will, therefore, insert a few advertisements on the following favorable terms : Five cents per line for the first insertion. Three cents per line for successive insertions of the same advertisement. H am ilton, in bis philosophy of the condition ed, page 478, shows that cause cannot be abso lute, nor effect infinite. But w h a tever the u l tim ate may be, it must be conceived as made of p a rts and divisible ; therefore not infinite or absolute. But H am ilton (at page 335, foot note) confounds, or makes them equivalent. Each individual finds the ultim a te as the lim it of his capacity of conceiving or apprehending. In all philosophical works, the terms “ absolute nature, absolute life, incom p ressibility, ex haustion,” and all other mere modes of being, frequently occur. The term ultim a te would not be so objectionable ; I think the word posi tive would be better. The direct or positive definition of the un conditioned is impossible. The less cannot comprehend the greater, and more than that, we can trace no connection or relation w ith it. W e cannot affirm anything, or quality, or at tribute of it. W e cannot deny it as existence, and in tliis perhaps lies all our pow er to prove it as being. It is not one, or all, or whole ; neither can it be first cause, source or fountain, since all these can be predicated only of di visible unity, or something m ade of parts or conditions. We cannot affirm that w e are in Space. Our conception of being in is to form a part of. We cannot im agine any being out of i t ; therefore, no difference can emerge, that is, no being can be substracted from it. It is (to us) neither active nor passive ; it w ill n e ither act n o r react. It is not a party in any conceivable phenome non. It cannot be thought as variable. It is not power, life, intelligence or truth, w e cannot consider it e ither subjective or objective ; these are more or less positive and dependent on conditions, and even on m a tter, body or sub stan c e ; and that is alw a y s neither more nor less than its conditions or parts make it. Yet none of the attributes or functions mentioned, or any mode of being, can be w ithout it. It is not bounded, nor does it constitute the bound ary of anything. We cannot say that it is ei ther spiritual or m a te rial, since they m u st be classed w ith the conditioned, as modes of be ing ; w h ile Duration and Space do not exist in any mode. The words by w h ic h w e designate them m u st be negative. We can conceive any or all modes of b eing as having a relative be ginning or ending, or rather changing ; b u t the most vigorous im agination cannot think them as not being or changing. I believe t h i t in every instance whore Ham ilton alludes to Time and Space, lie considers them as having a relative or conditioned ex istence ; as at page 347 and 354, he makes ex tension and space synonymous ; the passage is rather curious: lie says “ Space or extension is a necessary form of thought. We cannot think it as non-existent; w e cannot hu t think it existent. But we are not so necessitated to imagine the reality of aught occupying Space ; for w h ile unable to conceive as null the Space in w h ich the m a terial universe exists, the m a terial universe itself w e can w ithout difficulty annihilate in thought.” This may bo very proper as regards infinite Space. Now, “ if we cannot think extension non-existent, and cannot but think it existent, how can we annihilate the m aterial universe in th o u g h t; since w e cannot know, or even think at all, w ithout both extensive and pro- tensive plurality and difference, and m atter cannot be w ithout extension and outline. Al though the law of things (a w o rd not w e ll de fined) is different from the law of thought, the difference is only in degree ; and no difference can be Absolute. I think all w ill adm it that body is not conceivable w ithout extension, and thought depends on the progressive change of ideas. If we can think m a tter as not being, extension must follow the same rule* since it- is dependent on body ; now if extension and Space be identical we can also think Space non-exist ent. The truth is, we can conceive of unlim ited change in all things, h u t as an u ltim ate no thing, or a n n ihilation is not attainable, since num b ers or degree cannot represent the in finite. This incongruous result arises from the at tem p t to consider as the same, that between w h ich we can trace no relation or m u tual de pendence : the conditioned and the uncondi tioned. On page 355 it is said “ we aro only able to conceive Body as that w h ich occupies Space, and is contained in Space.” It is true that we cannot conceive of Body as out of Space, or not contained in i t ; yet w h a t do w e under stand by being in, or contained 1 Can any thing be in or contained in another w ithout a change, or the idea of difference by its removal. If a n y thing is in Space, it is there uncondition ally as regards S p a c e : w e can imagine the change of relative position, and qualities or functions of body, w h ile it cannot be thought out of Space, or Space in any w a y affected by the mobility of matter. If Space be indeed conditioned, or only un limited expanse, then w e could imagine the in definite increase of body, and the gradual di minution of Space forever, as a sequence of cause and effect, until ultim ately, or possibly, Space would be annihilated. There is, how ever, this difference betw een extension and Space: the former can be appreciable to some of o u r senses. In connection w ith body (and that is the only w a y w e can know any quality) we can see and feel it. But the latter w e c a n not see, feel, touch or hear ; and it is independ ent of Body. H A H M O N I A L P H I L O S O P H Y . E X I S T E N C E . In considering existence, it w ill lie proper and necessary for us to classify it, so as to conform to w h a t it appears to us to be. The lim itation of our organs and faculties prevent us from knowing it as continuous; or even of conceiving it as an ultim a te unity. T h e re seems, first, to be a D u ality of existence, viz, the unconditioned and the conditioned: the former is not susceptible of definition or qua lification; but in order to consider it a t all we m u st subject it to conditions. We thus class it as first, and.-say it is two, viz, the Absolute and the Infinite, W ith regard 10 the conditioned we can be more free. It is composed of the unlimited o r Indefinite, and the Limited or Finite. The conditioned may bo re presented by num bers and degrees. Thus ad m itting th a t we have an actual unit or thing, 1 or the idea of such, w e can add or d ivide indefi- ! nitely, (not infinitely) to w h a tever extent we go in this process, that is the lim it of the Finite ; w e have a beginning and an end. The unlim i- j ted is the unending possibility of proceeding, a ! beginning but not an ending. The conditioned | is susceptible of w h a t wo suppose to be definite and also of indefinite variations. The uneon- 5 ditioncd, D u ration and Space are not (to us) susceptible of either. This is a broad and evi dent distinction. It is evident that Sir Wtn. Ham ilton understood this distinction between the indefinite and the infinite, (see page 470, note, third edition, yet I think he did not al w a y s have it in mind. It is evident that the limited and the unlim it ed are m u tually dependent on each other. The limited m u st be in and constitute, (while so considered,) an indefinite p a rt of the u n lim ited ; w h ile the latter cannot be conceived w ithout a relative beginning. The finite is definitely bounded ; the indefinite m u st begin, but to our apprehension cannot end. The division betw een them is a sort of sliding scale, that is, it is relative and not absolute, and as regards unity or the finite, wc cannot conceive it ■as simple or ultim ate, but in thought and in all things <a d ivisible compound.
