AGNOSTIC METAPHYSICS. 307 



of these cases. In calling the Unknowable a pure negation, I spoke 

 from the standpoint of Religion, not of Metaphysics. It may be a 

 logical postulate, but that of which we can know nothing, and of 

 which we can form no conception, I shall continue to call a pure nega- 

 tion, as an object of worship, even if I am told (as I now am) that it 

 is that " by which all things are created and sustained." Such is the 

 view of Sir James Stephen, and of every other critic who has joined 

 in this discussion. 



With respect to Dean Mansel I made no mistake ; the mistake is Mr. 

 Spencer's — not mine. I said that of all modern theologians the Dean 

 came the nearest to him. As we all know, in "First Principles" Mr. 

 Spencer quotes and adopts four pages from Mansel's " Bampton Lect- 

 ures." But I said " there is a gulf which separates even his all-negative 

 deity from Mr. Spencer's impersonal, unconscious, unthinking, and un- 

 thinkable Energy." Mr. Spencer says that I misrepresent him and 

 transpose his doctrine and Mansel's, because he regards the Absolute 

 as positive and the Dean regarded it as negative. If Mr. Spencer will 

 look at my words again, he will see that I was speaking of Mansel's 

 Theology, not of his Ontology. I said ^^ deity,'''' not the Absolute. 

 Mansel, as a metaphysician, no doubt spoke of the Absolute as a nega- 

 tive, whilst Mr. Spencer speaks of it as positive. But Mansel's idea 

 of deity is personal, whilst Mr. Spencer's Energy is not personal. That 

 is strictly accurate. Dean Mansel's words are, " it is our duty to think 

 of God as personal ; " Mr. Spencer's words are, " duty requires us 

 neither to affirm nor to deny personality " of the Unknown Cause. 

 That is to say, the Dean called his First Cause God ; Mr. Spencer 

 prefers to call it Energy. Both describe this First Cause negatively ; 

 but whilst the Dean calls it a Person, Mr. Spencer will not say that it 

 is person, conscious, or thinking. Mr. Spencer's impression then that 

 I misrepresented him in this matter is simply his own rather hasty 

 reading of my words. 



It is quite legitimate in a question of religion and an object of 

 worship to speak of this Unknowable Energy, described as Mr. Spen- 

 cer describes it, as " impersonal, unconscious, unthinking, and unthink- 

 able." The distinction that, since we neither affirm nor deny of it 

 personality, consciousness, or thought, it is not therefore impersonal, 

 is a metaphysical subtlety. That which can not be presented in 

 terms of human consciousness is neither personal, conscious, nor think- 

 ing, but properly unthinkable. To the ordinary mind it is a logical 

 formula, it is apart from man, it is impersonal and unconscious. And 

 to tell us that this conundrum is " the power which manifests itself in 

 consciousness," that man and the world are but its products and mani- 

 festations, that it may have (for aught we know) something higher 

 than personality and something grander than intelligence, is to talk 

 theologico-metaphysical jargon, but is not to give the average man 

 and woman any positive idea at all, and certainly not a religious idea. 



