218 Max Miiller on CHAP. 



less as opposed to their changefulness, and necessary, 

 or absolute, as opposed to their contingency. The 

 earliest and crudest form of this intuition is the 

 sense of merely natural, or spatial, infinity ; and this 

 is not a generalisation or an inference ; it is, like the 

 intuition of the self and of the external world, 

 attained by the spontaneous activity of the mind. 

 On this subject I will quote some remarkable words 

 from Max Miiller, though he appears to attribute to 

 the mind's passive capacity what I should rather 

 attribute to its unconscious activity. 



" We have accepted the primitive savage with 

 nothing but his five senses. These five senses supply 

 him with a knowledge of finite things ; our problem 

 is how such a being ever comes to speak or think of 

 anything not finite but infinite. I answer without 

 any fear of contradiction, that it is his senses which 

 give him his first impression of infinite things, and 

 force him to the admission of the Infinite. Every- 

 thing to which his senses cannot perceive a limit is, 

 to the primitive savage, or to any man in an early 

 stage of intellectual activity, unlimited or infinite. 

 Man sees he sees to a certain point, and there his 

 eyesight breaks down. But exactly where his sight 

 breaks down, there presses upon him, whether he 

 likes it or not, the perception of the unlimited or 

 Infinite. It may be said that this is not perception 

 in the ordinary sense of the word. No more it is ; 

 but still less is it mere reasoning. In perceiving the 

 Infinite, we neither count, nor measure, nor compare, 



