Note 33 — SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS. (continued 2)

Mr. Herbert Spencer has treated of this subject in his memorable controversy with Mill on the "Universal Postulate" (see Psychology, § 427), and refuses to entertain the term "Inconceivable" as applicable to any propositions other than those wherein "the terms cannot, by any effort, be brought before consciousness in that relation which the proposition asserts between them." That is to say, he limits the term "Inconceivable" to that which is absolutely inconceivable; and he then proceeds to affirm that all propositions "which admit of being framed in thought, but which are so much at variance with experience, in which its terms have habitually been otherwise united, that its terms cannot be put in the alleged relation without effort," ought properly to be termed "incredible" propositions. Now I cannot see that the class "Incredible propositions" is, as this definition asserts, identical with the class which I have termed "Relatively inconceivable" propositions. For example, it is a familiar observation that, on looking at the setting sun, we experience an almost, if not quite, insuperable difficulty in conceiving the sun's apparent motion as due to our own actual motion, and yet we experience no difficulty in believing it. Conversely, I entertain but little difficulty in conceiving—i.e., imagining—a shark with a mammalian heart, and yet it would require extremely strong evidence to make me believe that such an animal exists. The truth appears to be that our language is deficient in terms whereby to distinguish between that which is wholly inconceivable from that which is with difficulty conceivable. This, it seems to me, was the principle reason of the dispute between Spencer and Mill above alluded to,—the former writer having always used the word "Inconceivable" in the sense of "Absolutely inconceivable," and the latter having apparently used it—in his Logic and elsewhere—in both senses. I have endeavoured to remedy this defect in the language by introducing the qualifying words, "Absolutely" and "Relatively," which, although not appropriate words, are the best that I am able to supply. The conceptive faculty of the individual having been determined by the experience of the race, that which is inconceivable by the intelligence of the race may be said to be inconceivable to the intelligence of the individual in an absolute sense; no effort on his part can enable him to surmount the organically imposed conditions of his conceptive faculty. But that which is inconceivable merely to one individual or generation, while it is not inconceivable to the intelligence of the race, may properly be said to be inconceivable to the intelligence of that individual or generation only in a relative sense; apart from the special condition to which the individual intelligence has been subjected, there is nothing in the conditions of human intelligence as such to prevent the thing from being conceived. [While this work has been passing through the press, I have found that Mr. G. H. Lewes has already employed the above terms in precisely the same sense as that which is above explained.—1878.]