40 ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 



in every sense perfect, complete, total : including within it- 

 self all power, and transcending all law. Or to use the es- 

 tablished word, it must be absolute. 



Here then respecting the nature of the Universe, we 

 seem committed to certain unavoidable conclusions. The 

 objects and actions surrounding us, not less than the phe- 

 nomena of our own consciousness, compel us to ask a cause; 

 in our search for a cause, we discover no resting place until 

 we arrive at the hypothesis of a First Cause ; and we have no 

 alternative but to regard this First Cause as Infinite and Ab- 

 solute. These are inferences forced upon us by arguments 

 from which there appears no escape. It is hardly needful 

 however to show those who have followed thus far, how 

 illusive are these reasonings and their results. But that it 

 would tax the reader's patience to no purpose, it might easily 

 be proved that the materials of which the argument is built, 

 equally with the conclusions based on them, are merely 

 symbolic conceptions of the illegitimate order. Instead, 

 however, of repeating the disproof used above, it will be 

 desirable to pursue another method; showing fallacy 

 of these conclusions by disclosing their mutual contradic- 

 tions. 



Here I cannot do better than avail myself of the demon- 

 stration which Mr Mansel, carrying out in detail the doc- 

 trine of Sir William Hamilton, has given in his " Limits of 

 Religious Thought." And I gladly do this, not only be- 

 cause his mode of presentation cannot be improved, but also 

 because, writing as he does in defence of the current Theolo- 

 gy, his reasonings will be the more acceptable to the major- 

 ity of readers. 



§ 13. Having given preliminary definitions of the First 

 Cause, of the Infinite, and of the Absolute, Mr Mansel 

 says : — 



" But these three conceptions, the Cause, the Absolute, 

 the Infinite, all equally indispensable, do they not imply 



