The Unknowable and the Knowable. 6 1 



absolute cause is not measured by its cosmic effects. 

 It is, therefore, greater than the cosmos. 



Let us assume it to be greater. A cause can only 

 exist as cause in relation to effects. Either, then, there 

 are effects of the unknowable power which do not 

 come within the domain of possible knowledge, or 

 the causal energy of the first cause did not exhaust 

 itself in the effects produced by it as first cause, and 

 this portion of its causal energy remains. Take 

 either supposition. If there are effects of the first 

 cause which are not revealed in the universe we know, 

 a relation subsists .between the knowable cosmos and 

 other manifestations of the absolute lying outside it : 

 in which case another disturbing element impinges 

 upon the field of experience. In the new conditions, 

 the law of the cosmos has to be determined over 

 against a second unknowable, and scientific hypotheses 

 reaching beyond observation are rendered doubly 

 doubtful. 



Let the other side of the alternative be taken ; let 

 it be supposed that the unexhausted energy of the 

 first cause has not gone forth in effects beyond the 

 knowable universe. On this supposition a new 

 element of incertitude emerges. The causal energy 

 of the absolute cause has not been at any moment 

 fully manifested ; there is something still in reserve 

 at every point in cosmic history. There can be no 

 certainty, then, that the inscrutable energy has not 

 at various points in time, or continuously along the- 



