The Unknowable and t/ie Knowable. 59 



If then, discarding the idea of a Supreme Intelligence, 

 we are to have a knowledge of the universe that shall 

 be aught more than the cognition of individual in- 

 stances, if we proceed from particular propositions to 

 general truths, we need to be assured that the known 

 is not at any point altered in its relations to the un- 

 knowable. If it shall be warrantable for us to group 

 phenomena, to ascertain their law, to carry forward 

 our generalizations beyond immediate observation; 

 much more if we shall aspire to a complete unifica- 

 tion of knowledge, we must have granted to us the 

 postulate, that over the whole field traversed by 

 thought the relation of the conditioned and uncon- 

 ditioned has remained fixed. We must assume that 

 the underlying actuality is established in an un- 

 changing relation to its phenomena, the absolute cause 

 to manifested effects. If the inscrutable cause has not 

 always revealed itself in the same manner ; if the mani- 

 festations of the absolute power have been increased 

 or diminished in amount, or modified in mode, at any 

 point in the series of change, the Evolution Hypothesis 

 is false. 



But how may this uniformity of relation be estab- 

 lished ? Not by observation ; for observation has not 

 surveyed the whole extent of phenomena, or traversed 

 the entire succession of the manifiestations of the 

 infinite : not by knowledge of the absolute power ; 

 for that is, by hypothesis, for ever inscrutable. But 

 there are open to us only these two methods of deter- 



