First Causes. 17 



has no right to assume equal obtuseness in other 

 people. 



2. Mr Spencer should be loyal to his Unknowable, 

 and not falsify his argument by endeavouring to 

 describe either what it is or is not ; for by so doing 

 he obviously renders the conception not only know- 

 able, but partially at least, known. Thus when he 

 even finds in this Unknowable something to fear or 

 reverence he commits himself. He lacks both policy 

 and loyalty to his own conception. 



3. If a force under, or a first cause to phenomena 

 exists, exerts influence over us, and, as the Creator 

 to the created, the producer to the product, holds 

 some affinity to us as a universal phenomenon, we 

 cannot logically or intelligibly concede that because 

 this " force" is unknowable to Mr Spencer, it shall be 

 so eternally to humanity. We would require some 

 other authority than Mr Spencer as an ultimate and 

 infallible philosophical oracle. Besides, a time must 

 in the inevitable evolution of things — if they have 

 unfolded themselves aright in the past — arise in the 

 future, when men shall enjoy a closer communion 

 with, and a clearer conception and, knowledge of, any 

 alleged but as yet unknowable or unknown natural 

 power or law. 



4. Mr Spencer, through a similar obliquity of 



intellect to metaphysicians, confounds the perceived 



force under phenomena (motion as manifested in 



phenomena, or the phenomenal antecedents as causes, 



to phenomenal consequents) with some fancied force 



B 



