RETROGRESSIVE RELIGION, 455 



Harrison represents. For whereas, in common with his teacher Sir 

 William Hamilton, Dean Mansel alleged that our consciousness of the 

 Absolute is merely " a negation of conceivability ; " I have, over a 

 space of ten pages,* contended that our consciousness of the Absolute 

 is not negative but positive, and is the one indestructible element of 

 consciousness " which persists at all times, under all circumstances, 

 and can not cease until consciousness ceases " — have argued that while 

 the Power which transcends phenomena can not be brought within the 

 forms of our finite thought, yet that, as being a necessary datum of 

 every thought, belief in its existence has, among our beliefs, the high- 

 est validity of any ; is not, as Sir W. Hamilton alleges, a belief with 

 which we are supernaturally " inspired," but is a normal deliverance 

 of consciousness. Thus, as represented by Mr. Harrison, Dean Man- 

 sel's views and my own are exactly transposed. Misrepresentation 

 could not, I think, go further. 



The conception I have everywhere expressed and implied, of the 

 relation between human life and the Ultimate Cause, if not diametri- 

 cally opposed with like distinctness to the conception Mr. Harrison 

 ascribes to me, is yet thus opposed in an unmistakable way. After 

 suggesting that {of) would be an appropriate symbol " for the religion 

 of the Infinite Unknowable," and amusing himself and his readers by 

 imaginary prayers made to (af ) ; after making a subsequent elabora- 

 tion of his jeu d^ esprit by suggesting that {nx) would serve for the 

 formula of certain modern Theisms, he says of these : — 



The Neo-Theisms have all the same mortal weakness that the Unknowable 

 has. They offer no kinship, sympathy, or relation whatever between worsliiper 

 and worshiped. They, too, are logical formulas begotten in controversy, dwell- 

 ing apart from man and the world. 



Now, considering that in the article he has before him there is in 

 various ways implied the view that " the power which manifests itself 

 in consciousness is but a differently conditioned form of the power 

 which manifests itself beyond consciousness " — considering that here 

 and everywhere throughout my books the implication is that our 

 lives, alike physical and mental, in common with all the activities, 

 organic and inorganic, amid which we live, are but the workings of 

 this Power, it is not a little astonishing to find it described as simply 

 a "logical formula begotten in controversy." Does Mr. Harrison 

 really think that he represents the facts when he describes as " dwell- 

 ing apart from man and the world," that Power of which man and the 

 world are regarded products, and which is manifested through man 

 and the world from instant to instant ? 



Did I not need the space for other topics, I might at much greater 

 length contrast Mr. Harrison's erroneous versions with the true ones. 

 I might enlarge on the fact that, though the name Agnosticism fitly 



* " First Principles," § 26. 



