COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



— to reduce the case to the shape in which it 

 was presented in the first chapter of this work 



— the Universe, as identified with God, is re- 

 garded as self-evolved. Such a hypothesis, 

 equally with that of the anthropomorphic theist, 

 implicitly limits Deity with an " objective da- 

 tum," and renders it finite ; for, as Mr. Mansel 

 has observed in another connection, " how can 

 the Infinite become that which it was not from 

 the first ? " Obviously for the change an ulte- 

 rior Cause is needed ; and thus the pantheistic 

 hypothesis resolves itself into the affirmation of 

 a limited Knowable conditioned by an unlimited 

 Unknowable, — but it is the former, and not 

 the latter, which it deifies. 



Hence to the query suggested at the begin- 

 ning of this chapter, whether the Deity can be 

 identified with the Cosmos, we must return a 

 very different answer from that returned by the 

 Pantheist. The " open secret," in so far as se- 

 cret, is God, — in so far as open, is the World ; 

 but in thus regarding the ever-changing universe 

 of phenomena as the multiform revelation of an 

 Omnipresent Power, we can in no wise identify 

 the Power with its manifestations. To do so 

 would reduce the entire argument to nonsense. 

 From first to last it has been implied that, while 

 the universe is the manifestation of Deity, yet 

 is Deity something more than the universe. 



The doctrine which we have here expounded 

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