The Unknowable. 51 



each impossible, as transcending the necessary limits 

 of intelligence. Availing himself of the argument 

 of Sir William Hamilton in his "Philosophy of the 

 Unconditioned," he proceeds to show that no definite 

 conception of the infinite is possible, that every 

 attempt to think it lands us in contradictions. He 

 supports his position by quoting the most telling 

 parts of Hansel's "Limits of Religious Thought;" 

 .and by a criticism of the process and the product 

 of thought, he endeavours to establish the principle 

 that no concept of the absolute can be formed ; all 

 knowledge is, therefore, relative. 



" Ultimate scientific ideas, then, are all representa- 

 tive of realities that cannot be comprehended. After 

 no matter how great a progress in the colligation of 

 facts, in the establishment of generalizations ever 

 wider and wider after the merging of limited and 

 derivative truths in truths that are larger and deeper 

 has been carried no matter how far ; the fundamental 



truth remains as much beyond reach as ever 



In all directions the investigations of the man of 

 science eventually bring him face to face with an 

 insoluble enigma ; and he ever more clearly perceives 

 it to be an insoluble enigma. He learns at once 

 the greatness and the littleness of the human intellect 

 its power in dealing with all that comes within the 

 range of experience; its impotence in dealing with 

 all that transcends experience. He realizes with a 

 special vividness the titter incomprehensibleness of 



