66 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



trast the two forms as the materialistic and the 

 idealistic. Nor does further reflection at once 

 disabuse us of this mistake ; for the seeming iden- 

 tity of atheistic pantheism with materialism is 

 very decided, and the only correction in our first 

 judgment that we next feel impelled to make, is 

 to recognise the ambiguous character of acosmic 

 pantheism. The Universal Substance, we then say, 

 in order to include an exhaustive summary of all 

 the phenomena of experience, must of course be 

 taken as both extending and being conscious ; but 

 is this Substance an extended being that thinks, or 

 is it a thinking being that apprehends itself under 

 a peculiar mode of consciousness called extension .-' 

 In other words, is the thinking of the Substance 

 grounded in its extended being, or has its exten- 

 sion existence in and through its thinking only .-' 

 Which attribute is primary and essential, and makes 

 the other its derivative and function .'' Under the 

 conception of the all-embracing existence of the 

 Absolute, this question is inevitable, irresistible — 

 will not down. According as we answer it in the 

 first or the second of the two suggested ways, we turn 

 the pantheism into materialism or, as we shall see 

 presently, into objective idealism. 



It thus becomes plain that the acosmic form of 

 pantheism may carry materialism as unquestionably 

 as it carries idealism, though indeed not so naturally 



