Theos-Talk Archives (October 2003 Message tt00106)

Following is an interesting definition from the OXFORD ENGLISH
DICTIONARY. It is one meaning of "conditioned." The primary
(first) definition sounds like it came right out of a theosophical
book. These thoughts were prevalent in the late 1800's, so it's
understandable that books about the Esoteric Philosophy written
in those times would express occult truths using the language of
the time. 

-- Eldon 

----

>b. Metaph. That which is subject to the conditions of finite 
>existence and cognition; opposed to the unconditioned, absolute, 
>or infinite.
>
>1829 Sir W. Hamilton Discuss. (1852) 14 The conditionally limited 
>(which we may briefly call the conditioned) is thus the only possible 
>object of knowledge and of positive thought.
>
>1836-7 I Metaph. xxxviii. (1870) II. 373 The Conditioned is that 
>which is alone conceivable or cogitable. 
>
>1846 I in Reid's Wks. 911/2 The Law of the conditioned:-That all 
>positive thought lies between two extremes, neither of which we can 
>conceive as possible, and yet, as mutual contradictories, the one or 
>the other we must recognise as necessary.
>
>1862 Spencer First Princ. (1880) 81 The Unconditioned therefore, as 
>classable neither with any form of the conditioned nor with any other 
>Unconditioned, cannot be classed at all.