all philosophical inquiry eventually finds its limit; and from the barriers which thus form a starting-point for ratiocination a line of argument is gradually constructed. In each subsequent chapter use is made of conclusions assumed to have been previously established. The last chapter is occupied exclusively with prospective considerations, objects of reasonable expectation, whether conducive to hope or to fear; and in this the drift and purpose of the treatise come fully and distinctly into view. The Notes are interspersed with quotations which exhibit the progress of philosophical speculation at various stages in its development. These have been given, not in any instance with the design of securing for a controverted proposition the patronage of a respected name, but in order to facilitate a thorough sifting and a just decision of the questions under discussion, and also, especially in the case of quotations from ancient writers, as illustrating some of the fruits which the human intellect has borne in labouring at the problems it encountered in the endeavour to analyze and define concepts having reference to the Supersensual and the Infinite. Such passages have been left for the most part untranslated, because they thus the better serve the chief purpose for which they are cited, the intellectual appliances which the pioneers of the Fundamental Science found ready to their hands or manufactured for themselves being in this way exposed to view in their primitive forms. The reader, however, who passes them over will not lose thereby in any place the thread of the reasoning, or find himself disqualified to form an opinion respecting the relevancy or force of any argument employed. In quoting from the Scriptures I have in many passages deviated more or less from the Authorized Version. My quotations from the New Testament have been for the most part taken from the Revised Translation. I request my readers to weigh carefully what I have said in reference to the future condition and prospects of the reprobate, and, in the event of their lighting upon phrases which at the first glance may seem to them to have been used with a view to mere rhetorical effect, to bear in mind that the choice of every word has been determined by a strictly philosophical intention. Here and there I have introduced-I need hardly say, not always or simply in the way of approval—the views and sentiments of agnostic writers who have gained high distinction by the fruits of sagacious and patient scientific research, or, to instance Mr. Herbert Spencer, by the exercise of an intellect at once acute and comprehensive over the whole of that realm of observation and reflection which lies within the sphere of the finite. I am far from reluctant to concede to such men the credit they deserve for having made valuable contributions to the stock of human knowledge; and if any one who, like myself, believes that there is a Science more comprehensive and more profound than their philosophy has recognized as yet, fails to derive profit from the study of their writings, the fault, I venture to think, is on his side rather than on theirs. Whoever disparages or contemptuously ignores their work does, not only injustice to them, but injury to himself and to the cause he has at heart. |