MR. BALFOUR'S DIALECTICS. 339 



only, but in nature, from certain minds which have been so 

 placed as to prevent communication of theological ideas from 

 without ; for it has been shown that among deaf-mutes who have 

 received no religious instruction, no idea of God exists.* Hence, 

 in the absence of proof to the contrary, we must say that that 

 high conception of a deity which exists in the minds of Mr. Bal- 

 four and others has had an historical origin. By what steps has 

 it been reached ? Beginning with the days when, as we are told, 

 God walked in the garden of Eden, there has been a gradual fall- 

 ing away of human attributes first of all the physical structure 

 and accompanying needs, such as those which Abraham minis- 

 tered to ; then the lower desires and passions which later Hebrew 

 books imply ; until through many changes now reactions to- 

 ward cruder and coarser ideas, and now advances toward more 

 refined ones there has been formed the present conception, in 

 which there remain only certain highest intellectual and moral 

 traits, possessed in a degree transcending human imagination. 

 So that, in fact, the movement of thought by which the existing 

 consciousness has been reached is exactly the reverse of the move- 

 ment alleged by Mr. Balfour. The word " emerges " implies prog- 

 ress from the imperceptible, through the vague, to the distinct ; 

 whereas the actual progress has been from the distinct, through 

 the more and more vague, to the imperceptible, or rather to the 

 scarcely conceivable, or literally inconceivable. So that when 

 collated with the implied change, the word "emerges" is also 

 found to stand for a pseud-idea. 



The difference between Mr. Balfour's consciousness of that 

 which lies behind Appearance, and the consciousness of those he 

 opposes (or, at least, of such of them as do not assume that there 

 can be Appearance without anything which appears), is that 

 whereas he persists in supposing himself to have thoughts when, 

 under close examination, all the components of thoughts have 

 vanished, they candidly admit that with the vanishing of such 

 components all thoughts have ceased; leaving only a conscious- 

 ness which can not be put into any form. Not only have they 

 dropped those early conceptions which imply that the Power 

 manifested in thirty millions of suns made a bargain with Abra- 

 ham not only have they ceased to believe that such inferior pas- 

 sions as jealousy, anger and revenge can be felt by an Energy 

 which pervades infinity; but they have surrendered themselves 

 to the final conclusion that not even the highest mental attributes 

 conceivable by us, can be predicated of that Existence which fills 

 all Space for all Time. 



It is not that they ivish to do this, but that they must : self- 



* Ecclesiastical Institutions, chapter i. 



