ITS SELF-CONTRADICTION. 21 



ibility of a transition from the known to the unknow--* 

 able. It Is the vagary of an insane logic which 

 from its very nature refutes itself. It Is as Imposs- 

 ible to credit Its Initial assertion as it was to believe 

 the Hibernian who asserted that he was dead. If, 

 therefore, the assertion alone of the unknowable 

 implies that It Is not wholly unknowable, what busi- 

 ness haye we to call it the unknowable ? 



But this Is not all. All reasoning that does not 

 confine Itself to an analysis of the' logical necessities 

 of our thought, must be based upon some real evid- 

 ence, must have some ground from which it draws 

 its conclusions. But if so; that evidence must have 

 a determinate character, which must affect its con- 

 clusions, and which may. If we choose, appear in 

 them. The Inference as to the existence of a thincr 

 may often be so much the most Important as to be 

 the only one we care to derive from our evidence, 

 but In Itself it sa3/'s least. An existential judgment 

 cannot be made unless we have grounds for assert- 

 ing very much more than bare existence. Either 

 we have no grounds for asserting the existence of a 

 thing at all, or we have grounds for asserting a 

 certain kind of existence, an existence of a deter- 

 minate character. It follows from these creneral 



o 



principles of reasoning, that, in this case also, the 

 evidence on the strength of which we inferred the 

 ^^existence of an unknowable beyond the known, can 

 ^Hhever justify an inference mei^ely to the bare exist- 

 ^fcnce of the unknowable. That inference must to 

 ^Kome extent reveal the nature of the unknowable ; 

 ^Ht must present us with some hints of its attributes 

 ^H)r qualities ; the character of the unknowable must 

 ^Ro some extent appear In Its action. And so the 



