282 



THE GEXESTS OF SPECIES. 



[Chap. 



knowledge of tlie existence of v,iiich presses itself ever 

 mure and more upon the cultivated intellect, cannot be 

 the unknown, still less the nnknowahlc, because we cer- 

 tainly know it, in that we know for certain that it exists. 

 Nay more, to predicate incognoscibility of it, is even an 

 actual knowledge of the mode of its existence. Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer says : ^ " The consciousness of an Inscru- 

 table Power manifested to us through all phenomena has 

 been growing ever clearer ; and must eventually be freed 

 from its imperfections. The certainty that on the one 

 hand such a Power exists, while on the other hand its 

 nature transcends intuition, and is beyond imagination, is 

 the certaintv towards which intelliLjenee has from the first 

 been progi'essing." One would think tliat the familiar and 

 accepted word " the Inscrutable " (which is in this passage 

 actually employed, and to which no theologian would 

 object) would have been a far better term than *' the Un- 

 knowable." Tlie above extract has, however, such a 



• lisqualitication in the nature of x from being known. To say then that 

 tljL' First Cause is wholly removed from our apprehension is not simply a 

 disclaimer of faculty on our part : it is a charge of inability against the First 

 (.'ause too. The dictum about it is this : * It is a Being that juay e-\ist out 

 of knowledge, but that is precluded from entering within the sphere 

 of knowledge.' "We are told in one breath that this ik'ing must be in every 

 .sen.se ' perfect, complete, total — including in itself all power, and transcend- 

 ing all law' (p. 38); and in another that this perfect and omnipotent One 

 is totally incai»able of revealing any one of an inlinite store of attributes. 

 Need we j)oiut out the contradictions which this position involves? If 

 you abide by it, you deny the Absolute and Infinite in the very act of 

 .dlirming it, for, in debarring the First Cause from selt-revelation, you 

 imjiose a limit on its nature. And in the very act of declaring tlie First 

 Cause incognizable, you do not permit it to remain unknown. For that 

 only is unknown of which you can luitiier aihrm nor deny any predicate ; 

 liere you deny the j»ower of self-disclosure to the ' Absolute,' of which there- 

 lore something is known ; — viz., that nothing can be known !" 

 ' bx-. cit. i». lOS. 



