52 The Evolution Hypothesis. 



the simplest fact considered in itself. He, more than 

 any other, truly knoius that in its ultimate essence 

 nothing can be know,n." * 



But while Mr. Spencer goes fully with Sir William 

 Hamilton in denying any definite conception of the 

 absolute, and upholding the doctrine of the relativity 

 of knowledge, he rejects the position that there is no 

 positive content in our consciousness of the uncondi- 

 tioned. He falls back on the fact that, notwithstanding 

 the confutation of every definite concept which may be 

 formed of it, the absolute still persists in consciousness ; 

 and that it survives as a positive consciousness, and 

 not merely as a negation of the conditioned. Hence 

 he concludes that " besides that definite consciousness 

 of which logic formulates the laws, there is also an 

 indefinite consciousness which cannot be formulated."-}- 

 "To say that we cannot know the Absolute is, by 

 implication, to affirm that there is an Absolute. In 

 the very denial of our power to learn ivhat the 

 Absolute is, there lies hidden the assumption that it is - f 

 and the making of this assumption proves that the 

 Absolute has been present to the mind, not as a noth- 

 ing but as a something. The Noumenon, everywhere 

 named as the antithesis of the Phenomenon, is through- 

 out necessarily thought of as an actuality. It is rigor- 

 ously impossible to conceive that our knowledge is a 

 knowledge of Appearances only, without at the same 



* First Principles, 21. t First Principles, 26. 



