The Philosophy of the Conditioned

The Philosophy of the Conditioned, by Henry Longueville Mansel, is reprinted with additions from The Contemporary Review and comprises remarks on Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy and on Mr. J.S. Mill’s Examination of that Philosophy. The preface says that the remarks were originally published as an anonymous article in a Review, which will best explain the style in which they are written.

The essay sets out the view that matter is the only real existence, which it calls Materialism, and the view that mind is the only real existence, which it calls Idealism, as views that may be maintained. The essay says that Hamilton’s argument is to show that we have no positive conception of an Infinite Being, and that when we attempt to form such a conception, we do but produce a distorted representation of the finite. The essay says that the question really at issue is not whether the “Rationalist” argument is licit or illicit, but whether, in its lawful use, it is to be regarded as infallible or fallible.