the vital point may be touched by one crucial question,
_Upon what ultimate ground does faith itself rest?_ Hamilton says, "we
believe what rests upon _authority_." But what is that authority? I. It
is not the authority of Divine Revelation, because beliefs are called
"instinctive," "native," "innate," "common," "catholic,"[348] all which
terms seem to indicate that this "authority" lies within the sphere of
the human mind; at any rate, this faith does not rest on the authority
of Scripture. Neither is it the authority of Reason. "The original data
of reason [the first principles of knowledge] do not rest upon the
authority of reason, but _on the authority of what is beyond itself_."
The question thus recurs, what is this ultimate ground beyond reason
upon which faith rests? Does it rest upon any thing, or nothing?

[Footnote 348: Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton, pp. 68, 69.]

The answer to this question is given in the so-called "Law of the
Conditioned," which is thus laid down: "_All that is conceivable in
thought lies between two extremes, which, as contradictory of each
other, can not both be true, but of which, as mutual contradictories,
one must_." For example, we conceive _space_, but we can not conceive it
as absolutely bounded or infinitely unbounded. We can conceive _time_,
but we can not conceive it as having an absolute commencement or an
infinite non-commencement. We can conceive of _degree_, but we can not
conceive it as absolutely limited or as infinitely unlimited. We can
conceive of _existence_, but not as an absolute part or an infinite
whole. Therefore, "the Conditioned is that which is alone conceivable or
cogitable; the Unconditioned, that which is inconceivable or
incogitable. The conditioned, or the thinkable, lies between two
extremes or poles; and each of these extremes or poles are
unconditioned, each of them inconceivable, each of them exclusive or
contradictory of the other. Of these two repugnant opposites, the one is
that of Unconditional or Absolute Limitation; the other that of
Unconditional or Infinite Illimitation, or, more simply, the Absolute
and the Infinite; the term _absolute_ expressing that which is finished
or complete, the term _infinite_ that which can not be terminated or
concluded."[349]

"The conditioned is the mean between two extremes--two inconditionates,
exclusive of each other, neither of which _can be conceived as
possible_, but of which, on the principle of contradi