166 SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 



cognition of the Absolute was impossible, because it pre- 

 sented neither relation, nor its elements — difference and 

 likeness. Further, we found that not only Intelligence but 

 Life itself, consists in the establishment of internal relations 

 in correspondence with external relations. And lastly, 

 it was shown that though by the relativity of our thought 

 we are eternally debarred from knowing or conceiving Ab- 

 solute Being; yet that this very relativity of our thought, 

 necessitates that vague consciousness of Absolute Being 

 which no mental effort can suppress. That relation is the 

 universal form of thought, is thus a truth which all kinds 

 of demonstration unite in proving. 



By the transcendentalists, certain other phenomena of 

 consciousness are regarded as forms of thought. Presuming 

 that relation would be admitted by them to be a universal 

 mental form, they would class with it two others as also uni- 

 versal. "Were their hypothesis otherwise tenable however, it 

 must still be rejected if such alleged further forms are inter- 

 pretable as generated by the primary form. If we think in 

 relations, and if relations have certain universal forms, it is 

 manifest that such universal forms of relations will become 

 universal forms of our consciousness. And if these further 

 universal forms are thus explicable, it is superfluous, and 

 therefore unphilosbphical, to assign them an independent 

 origin. Now relations are of two orders — relations 



of sequence, and relations of co-existence ; of which the one 

 is original and the other derivative. The relation of se- 

 quence is given in every change of consciousness. The rela- 

 tion of co-existence, which cannot be originally given in a 

 consciousness of which the states are serial, becomes distin- 

 guished only when it is found that certain relations of 

 sequence have their terms presented in consciousness in 

 either order with equal facility; while the others are pre- 

 sented only in one order. Relations of which the terms are 

 not reversible, become recognized as sequences proper; 

 while relations of which the terms occur indifferently in 



