n 



argument. It consists of two parts : first, " The Unknowable," and 

 second, " The Laws of the Knowable." Unattractive as these titles 

 may seem, they indicate a discussion of great originality and 

 transcendent interest. 



When public consideration is invited to a system of philosophy 

 BO extended as to comprehend the entire scheme of nature and 

 humanity, and so bold as to deal with them in the ripest spirit 

 of science, it is natural that many should ask at the outset how 

 the author stands related to the problem of Religion. Mr. 

 Spencer finds this the preliminary question of his philosophy, 

 and engages with it at the threshold of his undertaking. Before 

 attempting to work out a philosophical scheme, he sees that it is 

 at first necessary to find how fiir Philosophy can go and where 

 she must stop — the necessary limits of human knowledge, or the 

 circle which bounds all rational and legitimate investigation ; and 

 this oj^ens at once the profound and imminent question of the 

 spheres and relation of Religion and Science. 



Mr. Spencer is a leading representative of that school of think- 

 ers which holds that, as man is finite, he can grasp and know 

 only the finite ; — that by the inexorable conditions of thought all 

 real knowledge is relative and phenomenal, and hence that we 

 cannot go behind phenomena to find the ultimate causes and solve 

 the ultimate mystery of being. In such assertions as that " God 

 cannot by any searching be found out ; " that " a God understood 

 would be no God at all ; " and that " to think God is as we think 

 Him to be is blasphemy," we see the recognition of this idea of 

 the inscrutableness of the Absolute Cause. The doctrine itself is 

 neither new nor limited to a few exceptional thinkers. It is 

 widely affirmed by enlightened science, and pervades nearly all 

 the cultivated theology of the present day. Sir "William 

 Hamilton and Dr. Mansel are among its recent and ablest ex- 

 pounders. " With the exception," says Sir William Hamilton, 

 " of a few late absolutist theorizers in Germany, this is j^erhapa 



