304 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



sentiment surviving, mainly the consciousness of Mystery ; this is, in- 

 deed, the mockery of Religion. 



Forced, as it seems, to clothe the nakedness of the Unknowable 

 with some shreds of sentiment, Mr. Spencer has given it a positive 

 character, which for every step that it advances towards Religion re- 

 cedes from sound Philosophy. The Unknowable was at first spoken 

 of as an " unthinkable abstraction," and so undoubtedly it is. But it 

 finally emerges as the Ultimate Reality, the Ultimate Cause, the All- 

 Being, the Absolute Power, the Unknown Cause, the Inscrutable 

 Existence, the Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things 

 proceed, the Creative Power, " the Infinite and Eternal Energy, by 

 which all things are created and sustained." It is " to stand in sub- 

 stantially the same relation towards our general concejDtion of things 

 as does the Creative Power asserted by Theology. ' " It stands to- 

 wards the Universe, and towards ourselves, in the same relation as an 

 anthropomorphic Creator was supposed to stand, bears a like relation 

 with it, not only to human thought but to human feeling." In other 

 words the Unknowable is the Creator ; subject to this, that we can not 

 assert or deny that he, she, or it, is Person, or Being, or can feel, think, 

 or act, or do anything else that we can either know or imagine, or is 

 such that we can ascribe to Him, Her, or It anything whatever within 

 the realm of consciousness. 



Now, the Unknowable, so qualified and explained, offends against 

 all the canons of criticism, so admirably set forth in "First Principles," 

 and especially those of Dean Mansel, therein quoted and adopted. The 

 Unknowable is not unknowable if we know that " it creates and sus- 

 tains all things." One need not repeat all the metaphysical objections 

 arrayed by Mr. Spencer himself against connecting the ideas of the 

 Absolute, the Infinite, First Cause, and Creator with that of any one 

 Power. How can Absolute Power create ? How can the Absolute 

 be a Cause ? The Absolute excludes the relative ; and Creation and 

 Cause both imply relation. How can the Infinite be a Cause, or 

 create ? For if there be effect distinct from cause, or if there be 

 something uncreated, the Infinite would be thereby limited. What is 

 the meaning of All-Being ? Does it include, or not, its own manifesta- 

 tion ? If the Cosmos is a mere show of an Unknown Cause, then the 

 Unknown Cause is not Infinite, for it does not include the Cosmos ; 

 and not Absolute, for the Universe is its manifestation, and all things 

 proceed from it. That is to say, the Absolute is in relation to the 

 Universe, as Cause and Effect. Again, if the "very notions, begin- 

 ning and end, cause and purpose, relative notions belonging to human 

 thought, are probably irrelevant to the Ultimate Reality transcending 

 human thought " (Spencer, " Nineteenth Century," p. 12), how can we 

 speak of the Ultimate Cause, or indeed of Infinite and Eternal ? The 

 philosophical difficulties of imagining a First Cause, so admirably put 

 by Mr. Spencer years ago, are not greater than those of imagining an 



