Philosophic Evolution. 189 



times, and that God Himself could not make them other- 

 wise. The declarations of the intellect and its logical 

 processes having been thus justified, its declarations as 

 to " causation " and " morality " gain at once an un- 

 questionable validity. It becomes a self-evident truth, 

 that even if the material universe be eternal, its series 

 of phenomenal, conditional changes, ranging in recurring 

 cycles through a past eternity, must none the less re- 

 quire a real, absolute eternal Cause, while the absolute 

 declarations of the intellect respecting morals will ne- 

 cessitate the attribution to that supreme Cause of " a 

 goodness " harmonising with, however immeasurably 

 exceeding, that of man. To put it shortly, this zealous 

 propagation of the absurd denial of our knowledge 

 of our own existence is but the prelude to a more 

 thorough and complete understanding of that know- 

 ledge and of all which it involves, than any other cause 

 (save such denial) could well be conceived as producing. 

 In knowing our own continued existence, we come to 

 know, with a supreme degree of certainty, a whole 

 system of objective truths which the intellect is seen to 

 have the wonderful power, not only of perceiving, but 

 of perceiving to be objectively, absolutely, and universally 

 true. 



The facts here stated may be thus summed up : 

 Our recognition of our own self-knowledge reveals to us 

 objective truth and our possession of it. 



