454 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



think this in face of the statement on page 11 that "phenomenal mani- 

 festations of this ultimate energy can in no wise show us what it is ? " 

 Surely that which is described as the substratum at once of material 

 and mental existence, bears toward us and toward the Universe, a 

 relation utterly unlike that which electricity bears to the other physi- 

 cal forces. 



Persistent thinking along defined grooves, causes inability to get 

 out of them ; and Mr. Harrison, in more than one way, illustrates this. 

 So completely is his thought molded to that form of phenomenalism 

 entertained by M. Comte, that, in spite of repeated denials of it, he 

 ascribes it to me ; and does this in face of the various presentations 

 of an opposed phenomenalism, which I have given in the article he 

 criticises and elsewhere. Speaking after his lively manner of the 

 Unknown Cause as " an ever-present conundrum to be everlastingly 

 given up," he asks — " How does the man of science approach the All- 

 Nothingness ? " Now M. Comte describes Positivism as becoming 

 perfect when it reaches the power to " se representer tous les divers 

 ph^nom^nes observables comme des cas particuliers d'un seul fait 

 general . . . considerant comme absolument inaccessible, et vide de 

 sens pour nous, la recherche de ce qu'on appelle les causes, soit pre- 

 mieres, soit finales ; " * and in pursuance of this view the Comtean 

 system limits itself to phenomena, and deliberately ignores the exist- 

 ence of anything implied by the phenomena. But though M. Comte 

 thus exhibits to us a doctrine which, performing " the happy dis- 

 patch," eviscerates things and leaves a shell of appearances with no 

 reality inside ; yet I have in more than one place, and in the most 

 emphatic way, declined thus to commit intellectual suicide. So far 

 from regarding that which transcends phenomena as the "All-Nothing- 

 ness," I regard it as the All-Being. Everywhere I have spoken of the 

 Unknowable as the Ultimate Reality — ^the sole existence : all things 

 present to consciousness being but shows of it. Mr. Harrison entirely 

 inverts our relative positions. As I understand the case, the " All- 

 Nothingness " is that phenomenal existence in which M. Comte and 

 his disciples profess to dwell — profess, I say, because in their ordinary 

 thoughts they recognize an existence transcending phenomena just 

 as much as other people do. 



That the opposition between the view actually held by me and the 

 view ascribed to me by Mr. Harrison, is absolute, will be most clearly 

 seen on observing the contrast he draws between my view and the 

 view of the late Dean Mansel. He says : — 



Of all modern theologians, the Dean came the nearest to the evolution nega- 

 tion. But there is a gulf which separates even his all-negative deity from Mr. 

 Spencer's impersonal, uncouscious, unthinking, and unthinkable energy. 



It is quite true that there exists this gulf. But then the propositions 



forming the two sides of the gulf are the opposites of those which Mr. 



* " Syst6me de Philosophic Positive," vol. i, pp. 6, 14. 



