Potentiality—all originating power and everything that has flowed from its exercise; but we cannot thus get rid of either Time or Space. Whether we might have had minds so constituted as to add further possibilities to this category, is a question which, presumably, no reasoning of ours will ever solve. All that we can feel sure of is that no new possibility of this description will ever arise; and, similarly, we assume that no addition can take place to the sum total of existing Potentiality; for whatever may be that has not been from everlasting, our intellect insists that it shall have had a cause—that it shall never have been without potential existence. Now, in the cosmical possibilities in question we perceive boundless room, into which, nevertheless, our reason easily introduces a Potentiality to which it can assign no limit; but to attempt to represent to our minds series and successions as coextensive with this room in any direction, is to entangle our intellect in contradictions, and to incapacitate ourselves from coming to any conclusion whatever. Having, as I hope, avoided all insidious impediments to effectual reasoning, I find myself arrived at the conclusion, that a Phenomenal World is, in respect to both duration and extent, finite.

i

11. It has, indeed, been objected that the question whether phenomena are finite or infinite is beyond the province of reason, and that the attempt to deal with it is due to a "misunderstanding-phenomena, according to the common prejudice, being taken for things in themselves, and an absolute completeness of their synthesis being demanded in one way or another (being equally impossible in either way), a demand entirely unreasonable with regard to phenomena;" and that the two propositions, namely,

i Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason,” translated by F. Max Müller, vol. ii. p. 634.

C

"first, that the series of phenomena, given by themselves, has an absolutely first beginning," and "secondly, that the series is absolutely and by itself without any beginning," are "perfectly consistent with each other, because phenomena, with regard to their existence as phenomena, are by themselves nothing, that is, are self-contradictory, so that their hypothesis must naturally lead to contradictory inferences." But this objection overlooks that our argument by no means assumes the existence of phenomena considered by themselves, and of a series irrespective of apperception in the perceiving mind. We are committed to no such hypothesis what we maintain is this, that-if the manifold in our perceptions has a cause which is itself manifold, and which thus involves successions of any description, these successions are of necessity finite, and presuppose some antecedent which is not manifold but simple, and moreover, since they are series of changes and had beginning, is Immutable and Eternal.

:

12. Certain considerations,* doubtless, plausibly suggest

Change of any description, or, what is the same thing, Motion, evidently involves plurality: στάσις τοῦ ἑνός, κίνησις δε τοῦ πλήθους (Aristotle, "Metaphys.,” III. ii. 21).

The mere conception of Plurality in the way of succession, as I have endeavoured to show, at once forbids the ascription of eternal existence to any kind of being but that which may be designated Tò“Ev, The One. It is demonstrable that all movement and change had a beginning, a 7, an apx, and that their efficient cause was something eternally stationary and essentially immutable. The conception. which thus accounts for them is embarrassed by no metaphysical difficulty whatever, although it must doubtless be allowed to transcend all imagination.

The weightiest objection to the hypothesis that the universe is finite-an objection, however, which is not put forward in the belief that it is conclusive-is powerfully, and I think adequately, set forth in the following reasonings of an eminent teacher of one of the physical sciences: "Of this infinity it has been finely said, that its centre is

the infinitude of the Manifold: it seems to occupy in the only imaginable way what otherwise presents itself to the

everywhere, its boundary nowhere. Now, whether within this infinity of space there be an infinity of matter, is a question which we cannot so certainly answer. Only, if we were to accept this as certain, that the proportion which unoccupied bears to occupied space cannot be infinitely great-a view which at least seems reasonable and probable -then it would follow that matter as well as space must be infinite, since any finite proportion of infinity must itself also be infinite. So that regarding occupied space as the realm over which the Almighty's control is exercised, and over which His supervision extends, we find just reason for looking upon that realm as no less infinite than the infinity of space in which it is contained. . . . Infinity of time, occupied or unoccupied, there must undoubtedly be. And although it is not possible for us to know certainly, that there has been no beginning, or that there will be no end to that portion of time which is occupied with the occurrence of events (of whatsoever sort), yet it appears so unreasonable to conceive that unoccupied time bears an infinitely great proportion to occupied time, that we seem led to the conclusion that occupied time is infinite-or, more definitely, that there has been no beginning and will be no end to the sequence of events throughout the infinitely extended realm of the Almighty. And thus we are forced to believe in the infinite wisdom and the infinite power of God; since to conceive of limits to the wisdom and power of Him whose realm is infinite in extent and in duration, is obviously to conclude that the Ruler is infinitely incompetent to rule over His Kingdom, for there can be no relation between the finite and the infinite save the relation of infinite disproportion " ("Other Worlds than Ours," by R. A. Proctor, p. 316).

The line of reasoning adopted in the above-cited passage owes its force in part to language which, on examination, will be found ambiguous and misleading. "Without beginning " and "without end" are not, as is so commonly and unsuspectingly assumed, correlative phrases. Strictly speaking, progression, whether in time or in space, is never without an end. In the present moment duration has always a boundary. The barrier is perpetually shifting, but it cannot be broken down. We are not at liberty to conceive of a progressive kind of existence as outstripping, to the extent even of an instant, the actual present. Accordingly, the term infinite has come to be used sometimes in other than its proper sense, thus necessitating that, before employing it in argument, we should observe to what kind of existence we are applying it. We have no difficulty in picturing to ourselves an

imagination as an illimitable Void. But, as I believe, reason, if left to act freely, and unembarrassed by the infinitely prolonged existence; but absolute infinitude as regards the future is predicable of nothing whatever that can find place in our imagination. So also is absolute infinitude as regards the past; although in nothing short of this would it seem that thought can come to anchor after it has commenced a voyage of discovery on the shoreless ocean of time without beginning. The truth is, any kind of existence to which we may apply an imaginable, and therefore finite, measure is of necessity finite. The notion of a line bounded at one end and absolutely boundless at the other, nay, of any line at all which may, strictly speaking, be called infinite, is an absurdity. We can see and divide in the mind's eye the course taken by a moving point; we can picture to ourselves the line thus formed; we must therefore dismiss from our minds lines and points altogether, if we would conceive infinitude. All Time, even the immensity of duration ever lengthening, must become but a cipher in our estimation, if we would apprehend Eternity. And thus, instead of maintaining that time is infinite, even in the past, it is, I think, more philosophical to confess that our inability, on the one hand, to assign limits to time, and on the other to realize as possible a duration that had no commencement, necessitates the assumption of a possibility of existence unconditioned by time. The mode of existence described by this negative condition, and no otherwise describable (the term condition I use advisedly; for an inalienable prerogative, even though supreme, I regard as a condition), we cannot represent to our imagination, but it has a significance for our intellect, and we have the distinct apprehension of a real Being when we use the word eternal.

The question, then, at issue may be propounded thus: is it conceivable that the world's mode of existence may be on a par with that of the Being whose infinite wisdom and infinite power it is assumed to illustrate? If I grant for a moment that this is not forbidden by the nature of the manifold, still, the concession will be of no value, except on the supposition that phenomenal existence is but a multiform and ever-varying aspect of the Infinite Being. The distinction between the Eternal Author and His works vanishes, and the would-be theist, if he maintains this theory, becomes unwittingly a pantheist. With no thought of depreciating the profoundly reverential spirit evinced in the reasoning on which I have been commenting, I hold that the doctrine least derogatory to the power of the Supreme Being is, that His works must needs be in every respect inferior to Himself—a perennial stream, indeed, ever fresh and sparkling for pure and healthy minds, but welling up from a source too deep to be fathomed by any mind but his own.

imagination, insists upon substituting the infinitude of the Simple for that of the Manifold. The void to be filled, whether of Space or of Time, has, whichever of the two hypotheses be adopted, no boundary which our imagination can ever reach. Its extent cannot be pictured in the mind. But is this a sufficient reason for regarding the Infinite as beyond the reach of cognition? Strictly speaking, nothing whatever, assumed to be external to the consciousness, can be supposed to paint in the imagination a picture which presents it as it really is. I may not conceive myself to be immediately sensible of anything whatever in the phenomenal surroundings of my conscious self, except what I believe to be the effects of the cerebral agitations arising from the influx of nerve currents. I have no right to assume that the effects of these agitations upon my imaginative faculty are fac-similes of the objects, forces, or whatever I may think fit to call them, which originated the waves.1 I can never cross to the farther side of this

'It should not, indeed, be overlooked that the eye, anatomically examined, shows on the retina in miniature a fac-simile of objects seen at the same time directly and in their natural size. Thus we are supplied with two different kinds of testimony relative to the impression which the sensorium may be presumed to receive through the organ of vision. How is it, we may ask, that the two witnesses tell precisely the same story? How is it that the two pictures, namely, that which simply by means of the organ represents, as is supposed, the given object, and that which must be understood to represent also and primarily an affection of a visual organ, are identical? Can the phenomenon be more satisfactorily explained than by assuming that the object is faithfully represented? Doubtless not. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that, with a sensorium differently constituted from that which we now possess, our mental pictures might have been unlike those which characterize our actual organization, might indeed have been such as under existing conditions it would be impossible for us even to imagine, and yet might follow, with no less fidelity than do the pictures which at present find place in our minds, the variations of their phenomenal causes.

In using such phrases as "mental picture," "representation," "im