334 MAN AND GOD. 



consequence Pantheists have been willing to admit, 

 since the days of the Eleatics, but all this proves Is 

 the pitiful inferiority and Inconsistency of subsequent 

 Pantheists. For the impossibility of Becoming fol- 

 lows incontestably from the reality of the All. 



For let us suppose that the world has a content 

 or meaning A, i.e., A of the quality or attribute in 

 which its meaning consists. Now let us suppose 

 that a change takes place, and its content becomes a. 

 Now whether the change of A into a be an increase 

 or a diminution, the amount of its Being has changed. 

 Its content or meaning has increased or diminished. 

 But the Absolute can neither increase nor diminish 

 the amount of its Being, for it already is and has all. 

 Its content, therefore, must be expressed by the 

 equation A = A = A to all eternity, i.e., it is un- 

 changeable.-^ 



If, therefore, changes take place in the phenomenal 

 world, the Inference is either that that world is not 

 the absolute All, or that the absolute All is a 

 delusion. If, however, we Identify or connect the 

 chancrinof world with the Absolute, we must neces- 

 sarily hold that Its changes are merely phenomenal, 

 illusions of our senses which do not affect the 

 Absolute, that properly speaking, i.e., from the true 



1 Cp. ch. vii. § 24. It may, perhaps, be objected to this illustra- 

 tion that to assume a content A is to Assume the finiteness of that 

 content. And this is true, but the assumption is really first made 

 when the world is supposed to have a meaning, i.e., a content 

 expressible in terms of the All. For (owing to the finiteness of 

 our minds ?) all the conceptions of our thought imply finitude, and 

 an infinite meaning is a meaning which means both this and that, 

 i.e., is indeterminate, and so means nothing at all. If, therefore, 

 we are to reason about the Infinite at all, we can only do so in 

 terms constantly implying finiteness, a fact which is significant 

 enough to those who deny the reality of the Infinite, though it 

 may well drive its champions to despair. 



