N^EW SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY. Vll 



tlie trutn of all others nrost harmoniously reechoed by every 

 philosopher of every school ; " and among these he names Pro- 

 tagoras, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Melanchthon, Scaliger, Bacon, 

 Spinoza, Newton, and Kant. 



But though Mr. Spencer accepts this doctrine, he has not left 

 it where he found it. The world is indebted to him for having 

 advanced the argument to a higher and grander conclusion — a 

 conclusion which changes the philosophical aspect of the whole 

 question, and involves the profoundest consequences. Hamilton 

 and Mansel bring us, by their inexorable logic, to the result that 

 we can neither know nor conceive the Infinite, and that every 

 attempt to do so involves us in contradiction and absurdity ; but 

 having reached this vast negation, their logic and philosophy 

 break down. Accepting their conclusions as far as they go, Mr. 

 Spencer maintains the utter incompleteness of their reasoning, 

 and, pushing the inquiry still farther, he demonstrates that 

 though we cannot grasp the Infinite in thougJit^ we can realize it 

 m consciousness. He shows that though by the laws of thinking 

 we are rigorously prevented from forming a conception of that 

 Incomprehensible, Omnipotent Power, by which we are acted 

 upon in all phenomena, yet we are, by the laws of thought, equally 

 prevented from ridding ourselves of the consciousness of this 

 Power. He proves that this consciousness of a Supreme Cause is 

 Qot negative^ but j^^^sitice — that it is indestructible, and has a 

 higher certainty than any other belief whatever. The Unknow- 

 able, then, m the view of Mr. Spencer, is not a mere term of nega- 

 tion, nor a word employed only to express our ignorance, but it 

 means that Infinite Reality, that Supreme but Inscrutable Cause, 

 of which the universe is but a manifestation, and which has an 

 ever-present disclosure in human consciousness. 



Having thus found an indestructible basis in human nature 

 for the religious sentiment, Mr. Sj)encer next shows that all reli- 

 gi(m3 rest upon this foundation, and contain a fundamental veritj 



