The schemes of Free Will and Fatalism,says Hamilton,(105)are 'theoretically balanced,'though the fatalist inconceivability is the 'less obtrusive';but 'practically'we must accept free-will on penalty of admitting the moral law to be 'a mendacious imperative.'That is,right and wrong become meaningless unless you accept one of two equally inconceivable doctrines.So Mansel declares freewill to be 'certain in fact'though 'inexplicable in theory.'(106)Why 'certain,'if,as he also declares,it is part of the 'fundamental mystery'of the coexistence of the Finite and the Infinite?(107)According to Mansel,again,the denial that an infinite Being exists,is simply the acceptance of one of two 'equally inconceivable alternatives.'(108)It is,he declares,'our duty'to think of God as 'personal'and to believe that he is 'infinite.'(109)It is a duty,then,to accept as a certainty what reason declares to be only one of two equally probable alternatives.
The general attitude is familiar enough.Pascal has put it in his famous 'wager.'Believe a thing because it is impossible.You must back one side;and reason is too imbecile to settle which.
Then give up reasoning.The argument is persuasive if not logically convincing.Hamilton was too much of a philosopher and a rationalist to accept it in that form.His application remained ambiguous.Probably he would have approved a rather vague theism,which might be interpreted in terms of many religious creeds.
Mansel,unluckily,had to get from his philosophy to the position of strict Anglican orthodoxy;from the contradictory inconceivables to the Thirty-nine Articles.His method of performing this feat has little interest now;but I must notice it enough to show the relation to Mill.
VI.REVEALED RELIGION
How is this Infinite and Absolute Being to be brought into any relation whatever with facts?How,by accepting one of two equally inconceivable alternatives,can we throw any light upon the truth of a historical statement?Mansel protests that he is not arguing as to the truth of any particular revelation.Though he is not bound to prove the truth of the Christian revelation,he is clearly bound to show that a revelation is probable,and to suggest the criterions by which its reality must be tested.Areligion,as Kant had said,could not be true which conflicted with morality.(110)If morality binds me to be merciful,and a god orders me to be cruel,he cannot be the true God.The deist Tindal had argued long ago that Joshua could not be justified by a divine command in exterminating the Canaanites.(111)In answering this difficulty,Mansel hit upon the unlucky phrase 'Moral Miracles.'(112)A 'moral miracle,'a conversion of a bad act into a good one,was,he admitted,not the kind of experiment to be used too often.Every scoundrel can work 'miracles'of that kind.He can break the divine law though he cannot break the 'law of nature.'How are we to know that in a given case the divine law has been suspended by the supreme ruler and not really broken by the wicked subject?By what logical feat can we show the identity of Jehovah with the Absolute and Infinite?The deity of joshua was frankly anthropomorphic:the (generally)invisible deity of a tribe.We can judge of his character as we can judge of the character of joshua himself,or of the character of Baal,or Moloch,or Zeus.If we argue that all the deities represent an imperfect feeling after a supreme Being,our judgment would not be affected.The deity would still be imperfect.The commands obeyed were still cruel and immoral,as conceived at the time.To argue that they were good because somehow or other Jehovah was the Inconceivable seems to be too obvious a fallacy even for a Bampton Lecturer.Mansel denounces the 'morbid horror of what they (philosophers)are pleased to call Anthropomorphi**.'
'Fools'to dream that man can escape from himself,that human reason can draw aught but a human portrait of God.'(113)They really argue that the portrait has at any rate very ugly features,and doubt whether it is possible to draw any portrait whatever of the Inconceivable.
Mansel makes play with this 'antinomy.'The God of his philosophy is too inconceivable to be a moral lawgiver.But,says Mansel,he is also jehovah.Jehovah,it is replied,is immoral.
But,says Mansel,he is also the Inconceivable.This singular mode of eluding difficulties can of course be expressed in edifying language.The 'caviller,'for example,had objected to 'vicarious punishment.'Mansel says(114)that this supposes that nothing can be compatible 'with the boundless goodness of God,which is incompatible with the little goodness of which man may be conscious in himself.'The ingenious argument,in spite of this way of putting it,excited Mill's very justifiable wrath.
