o mentally through it by successive steps of
representation--is indeed impossible; not less so than to traverse it in
our finite perception and experience. But to have the _thought_ of it as
an idea of the reason, not of the phantasy, and assign that thought a
constituent place in valid beliefs and consistent reasonings, appears to
us as not only possible, but inevitable."--Martineau's "Essays," p.
205.]

The grand logical barrier which Hamilton perpetually interposes to all
possible cognition of God _as infinite_ is, that to think is to
condition--to limit; and as the Infinite is the unconditioned, the
unlimited, therefore "the Infinite can not be _thought_." We grant at
once that all human thought is limited and finite, but, at the same
time, we emphatically deny that the limitation of our thought imposes
any conditions or limits upon the object of thought. No such affirmation
can be consistently made, except on the Hegelian hypothesis that
"Thought and Being are identical;" and this is a maxim which Hamilton
himself repudiates. Our thought does not create, neither does it impose
conditions upon, any thing.

There is a lurking sophism in the whole phraseology of Hamilton in
regard to this subject. He is perpetually talking about "thinking a
thing"--"thinking the Infinite." Now we do not think a thing, but we
think _of_ or _concerning_ a thing. We do not think a man, neither does
our thought impose any conditions upon the man, so that he must be as
our thought conceives or represents him; but our thought is of the man,
concerning or about the man, and is only so far true and valid as it
conforms to the objective reality. And so we do not "think the
Infinite;" that is, our thought neither contains nor conditions the
Infinite Being, but our thoughts are _about_ the Infinite One; and if we
do not think of Him as a being of infinite perfection, our thought is
neither worthy, nor just, nor true.[321]

[Footnote 321: Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," pp. 255, 256.]

But we are told the law of all thought and of all being is
determination; consequently, negation of some quality or some
potentiality; whereas the Infinite is "_the One and the All_" (ti En kai
Pyn),[322] or, as Dr. Mansel, the disciple and annotator of Hamilton,
affirms, "the sum of all reality," and "the sum of all possible modes of
being."[323] The Infinite, as thus defined, must include in itself all
being, and all modes of being, actual and poss