if generalisation presuppose identity and non-contradiction, how are these to be derived from the completion of the process? 1

§ 175. To subvert the reality of thought by thought itself is a contradiction. It is to assert the reality of thought and to deny it at the same time and in the same act. We think that there is no thought. Mill, more suo, asks, “if the reality of thought can be subverted, is there any peculiar enormity in doing it by thought itself?" Simply this, that you would be asserting the reality of thought in subverting it. he really suppose as he writes, or does he imagine the least relevancy in this, "that if it were true that thought is an invalid process, what better proof of this could be given than that we could by thinking arrive at the conclusion that our thoughts are not to be trusted?" He adds, "Sir W. Hamilton always seems to suppose that the imaginary sceptic who doubts the validity of thought altogether is obliged to claim a greater validity for his subversive thoughts than he allows to the thoughts they subvert. But it is enough for him to claim the same validity, so that all opinions are thrown into equal uncertainty." There is no question here of more or less validity in thought, there is none simply of doubting even, none, properly speaking, of validity at all. The only point is, if I subvert the reality of a thought by asserting the (alleged) fact of a contradictory thought, be it concept or judgment, if I say that a contradictory judgment is and is true, that contradictories thus may be true, I subvert the act of thought in which I assert this, for in that case the contradictory of this assertion may be true. Thought is thus paralysed, and is unable in the absence of the test of non-contradiction to say anything whatever, to assert even its own reality, its own assertion.

§ 176. What is the bearing or scope of these laws, so far as existence is concerned? Hamilton's answer is that "whatever violates the laws of Identity, of Contradiction, or of Excluded Middle, we feel to be absolutely impossible, not only in thought but in existence. Thus we cannot attribute even to Omnipotence the power of making a thing different from itself, of making a thing at once to be and not to be, of making a thing neither to be nor not to be. These three laws 1 Refer to Examination, p. 487 et seq.

thus determine to us the sphere of possibility and of impossibility; and this not merely in thought but in reality, not only logically, but metaphysically." "They are the laws not only of human thought but of universal reason." "Very different is the result of the law of Reason and Consequent. This principle merely excludes from the sphere of positive thought what we cannot comprehend; for whatever we comprehend, that through which we comprehend it is its reason. What, therefore, violates the law of Reason and Consequent merely, in virtue of this law, becomes a logical zero; that is, we are compelled to think it as unthinkable, but not to think it, though actually non-existent subjectively or in thought, as therefore necessarily non-existent objectively or in reality." 1

§ 177. Mill admits that these laws are laws of all phænomena, and as existence has no meaning but one which has relation to phænomena, we are safe in admitting them to be laws of existence. "Existence itself, as we conceive it, is the power of producing phænomena." But Hamilton cannot be allowed to hold that these laws are applicable to all existence. Why, we ask in wonder? Because his opinion is "that we do know something more than phænomena; that we know the primary qualities of bodies as existing in the noumena, in the things themselves, and not as mere powers of affecting us." Suppose Hamilton did hold that we knew something more than phænomena, which is notoriously false, how does this prove that he cannot hold these laws to apply to this something more? It is further in no sense true that Hamilton held the primary qualities to exist in the noumena: he does not use the word noumenon. It is borrowed from another philosophy altogether. It is further not true that phænomenon is to be limited to the meaning of "affection on us"- the assumption of such a restricted meaning as the only one is even ludicrous.

§ 178. In supposing a law of thought not to be a law of existence, the thinking process is not, according to Mill, thereby invalidated. What law of thought does Mill here refer to? The only one in question at present is noncontradiction. Does the supposition of this not being a law of existence, while it is a law of thought, not subvert all truth, and make our thoughts about existence a mere 2 Examination, p. 494.

1 Lect. on Logic, vi.

K

are

illusion? If non-contradiction be possible in reality, and impossible in thought, how can thought represent correctly the real? What sort of a proof does he give of this? He says: "If the only real objects of thought, even when we are nominally speaking of noumena, phænomena, our thoughts are true when they are made to correspond with phænomena: and the possibility of this being denied by no one, the thinking process is valid whether our laws of thought are laws of absolute existence or not.” Suppose the mind incapable of thinking noumena, capable of thinking only phænomena as coming from noumena,—suppose the mind under no necessity of thinking these otherwise than in conformity to what they really are, then we may refuse to believe that our generalisations from the phænomenal attributes of noumena can be applied to noumena in any other aspect, without in the least invalidating thought in regard to anything to which thought is applicable.2 In other words, contradictory attributes while they cannot be thought to coexist in the phænomenal sphere, and cannot so coexist, may yet be believed to coexist in the unknown noumenal (unimaginable) sphere of being. What is impossible in the phænomenal sphere (perceived and imaginable), is yet possible in the unperceived, unimaginable, sphere of being; and therefore, if actual, thus true, and this possibility in regard to the unimaginable would not render invalid the (opposite) law in the sphere of the phænomenal perceivable and imaginable. In the first place, the belief in the possibility of the union of contradictories, whatever they might be, is precluded by the nature of the so-called thought or judgment which is said to unite them. Such a judgment is null, has no object, is not real as a judgment. And Mill, of all people, should be ready to acknowledge that we cannot believe where there is no object of belief. In the second place, if the law of noncontradiction be true or certainly true only in regard to the existence we perceive and think or imagine, but not in regard to the sphere of things beyond and above this, which yet produces the perceived and imagined or phænomenal, then our whole knowledge may be only an illusion; for this phænomenal given as non-contradictory may be the product of what is in itself really and essentially contradictory. 1 Examination, pp. 494, 495.

2 Ibid.

Therefore, truth and falsehood, yes and no, right and wrong, make after all but the dream of the finite mind, which is for ever barred from the certainty of true reality. And though our laws of thought are not invalidated by this supposition in the phænomenal sphere, the phænomenal sphere is itself but an uncertain symbolism, perhaps a delusive appearance of its very contradictory.

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CHAPTER XIV.

THE LAWS OF THOUGHT-THE DOCTRINE OF HEGEL

STATEMENT AND CRITICISM.

§ 179. The general ground on which Hegel attempts to abolish the laws of Identity and Non-Contradiction is the assumption that Identity and Difference, as inseparable in thought, are the same thing, or at least are mutually creative, -that identity is only identity as it is not difference, and difference is only difference as it is not identity, that each is not only itself but the special other of itself. This of course proceeds on the general assumption that what is necessarily connected in thought is so necessarily connected in existence, and that opposites are, in so far as real, mutually constitutive, in fact, mutually creative. The truth is, that while Identity and Difference are mutually implicative, alike in apprehension and thought, these are not thus mutually creative. They cannot be either apprehended or thought unless as relations already existing, and as existing in opposition as realities, while known together. Identity and Difference as mere abstract generalities are not possible, unless through special apprehension of identities and differences and they are nothing more than terminal abstractions, unless as realised in this or that specific identity or difference; and these are not possible unless as forms of reality, which no thought of ours, or process of thought passing through us, can create. Further, if identity and difference disappear in a higher concept or reality, and this goes on without limit, or ad infinitum, there is no truth, philosophical, moral, or religious, in the world. And there is no basis possible even for this assertion itself. Identity and