ANTHROPOMORPHISM AND COSMISM 



can be abolished only by abolishing conscious- 

 ness itself. 



But now, in the second place, this final scien- 

 tific conception of a uniformly conditioned force 

 cannot even be framed save by postulating an 

 unconditioned Power existing independently of 

 consciousness, to which no limit is conceivable 

 in time or space, and of which all phenomena, 

 as known to us, are the manifestations. It was 

 demonstrated above, in the fourth chapter, that 

 without postulating such an Absolute Existence, 

 we can frame no theory whatever, either of ex- 

 ternal or of internal phenomena, even our proof 

 of the relativity of knowledge immediately be- 

 coming nonsense in such case. It was shown that 

 the existence of such a Power independent of 

 us is an element involved in our consciousness 

 of our own existence — is, in short, the " ob- 

 verse of our self-consciousness." Thus the three 

 stages disappear entirely, and the three terminal 

 conceptions which are alleged as distinctively 

 characteristic of the stages are seen to be iden- 

 tical. The God of the monotheist, the Nature 

 of the metaphysician, and the Absolute Being 

 which science is compelled to postulate, differ 

 only as symbols differ which stand for the same 

 eternal fact. If there be any confusion still left 

 regarding this point, it will be dispelled by the 

 following citation from Mr. Spencer : — 



" The progress of our conceptions, and of 



