3i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



with the ordinarily ascribed divine attributes. Which of these did I 

 suppose Mr. Harrison meant by " all-negative deity " ? I was com- 

 pelled to conclude he meant that which in the ontological argument 

 was said to be a "negation of conceivability." How could I suppose 

 that by "all-negative deity" Mr. Harrison meant the deity which 

 Dean Mansel as a matter of " duty " rehabilitates and worships in bis 

 official capacity as priest ? It was a considerable stretch of courage on 

 the part of Mr. Harrison to call the deity of the established church an 

 " all-negative deity." Yet in seeking to escape from the charge of 

 misrepresenting me he inevitably does this by implication. 



In his second article IVIr. Harrison does not simply ascribe to me 

 ideas which are wholly unlike those my words express, but he ascribes 

 to me ideas I have intentionally excluded. When justifying my use 

 of the word " proceed," as the most colorless word I could find to'indi- 

 cate the relation between the knowable manifestations present to per- 

 ception and the Unknowable Reality which transcends perception, I 

 incidentally mentioned, as showing that I wished to avoid those theo- 

 logical implications which Mr. Harrison said were suggested, that the 

 words originally written were " created and sustained ; " and that 

 though in the sense in which I used them the meanings of these words 

 did not exceed my thought, I had erased them because " the ideas 

 associated with these words might mislead." Yet Mr. Harrison speaks 

 of these erased words as though I had finally adopted them, and sad- 

 dles me with the ordinary connotations. If Mr. Harrison defends him- 

 self by quoting my words to the effect that the Inscrutable Existence 

 manifested through phenomena " stands towards our general conception 

 of things in substantially the same relation as does the Creative Power 

 asserted by Theology ; " then I point to all ray arguments as clearly 

 meaning that when the attributes and the mode of operation ordinarily 

 ascribed to " that which lies beyond the sphere of sense " cease to be 

 ascribed, " that which lies beyond the sphere of sense " will bear the 

 same relation as before to that which lies within it, in so far that it 

 will occupy the same relative position in the totality of our conscious- 

 ness : no assertion being made concerning the mode of connection of 

 the one with the other. Surely when I had deliberately avoided the 

 word " create " to express the connection between noumenal cause and 

 the phenomenal effect, because it might suggest the ordinary idea of 

 a creating power separate from the created thing, Mr. Harrison was 

 not justified in basing arguments against me on the assumption that I 

 had used it. 



But the course in so many cases pursued by him of fathering upon 

 me ideas incongruous with those I have expressed, and making me 

 responsible for the resulting absurdities, is exhibited in the most ex- 

 treme degree by the way in which he has built up for me a system of 

 beliefs and practices. In his first article occur such passages as — 

 " seeking the Unknowable in a devout way " (p. 502) ; can any one 



