Page:(1856) Scottish Philosophy—The Old and the New.pdf/44

44 conceive time infinitely non-commencing, nor can we conceive it absolutely commencing. So of Space. We cannot conceive space as infinitely unlimited, nor can we conceive it as absolutely limited—we are thus said to be placed between two contradictories, neither of which is conceivable, but the one or other of which must be accepted on the ground that of two contradictory propositions, the one or the other must be true. But which is to be accepted we know not; we are perplexed between two opposite inconceivabilities; and this is what is meant by our knowledge "exploding in contradictions" when it applies itself to such subjects as Space and Time.

Mr Fraser has not only not supplied the explanation now given: he has, moreover, totally abstained from showing how these "explosions" affect my postulate, which is, that all reason is subject to certain necessary laws. I do not believe that one reader in a thousand has understood his statement about our knowledge exploding in contradictions, and a much smaller proportion can have perceived how it has any bearing upon my principle. Here, too, Mr Fraser has left his reader totally in the dark; and here, too, I am compelled to help him. In fact, to render my reviewer intelligible—to give him fair play as against himself, I am under the necessity of rewriting his attack, as well as my own defence. Was I not right in what I assert in the "Institutes" as to the confusion and unintelligibility of almost all metaphysical writing? Here we have a very pretty example. I have to constitute myself both pursuer and defender in this action.

His implied argument, then, is this: human reason explodes in contradictions, in other words, is nonplused between two contradictory propositions, when it pursues the consideration of such themes as space and time. Therefore all reason must explode in like contradictions, must be baffled in a similar way, if we hold that there is any analogy, any point in common between our and all other orders of intelligence, or that there are any laws binding on reason and knowledge universally. But to suppose that the highest reason should be thus baffled, is a supposition which is not to be entertained. Therefore the sound