340 MAN AND GOD. 



thing and everything. We may assert by "all" 

 either perfection with respect to the attributes in 

 question (power, goodness, wisdom, etc.), or an 

 unlimited maximum. But the first of these con- 

 ceptions is really that of a finite whole. To say that 

 God can do all that can be done, is to Imply that 

 there are things impossible even to God, is to assert 

 that He Is limited by an ultimate constitution of 

 things. And, as we shall see (§ 17), this is the true 

 conception of a totality or whole; the true interpret- 

 ation of the "all" is ''almighty," the true reconcili- 

 ation of " omnipotence," with the finiteness, which is 

 the condition of reality. But on the other hand, the 

 generality of men do not realize that a whole or 

 " all " is necessarily finite, and that an Infinite whole 

 Is a contradiction {cp. ch. II. § 20; ch. ix. § 8), and 

 imagining that an Infinite maximum can be a 

 whole, they attribute infinity to God. But in reality 

 an Infinite whole is Impossible, and the Infinite is 

 only the negative limit of the finite, which can exist 

 only in idea, and can never be actual. 



§ 17. Now it is evident that if we can make 

 good what has been asserted above, viz., that a 

 whole is necessarily finite, the assumption of an 

 infinite Deity becomes logically Inadmissible. It 

 will follow not only that the All must be finite, but. 

 that the Infinite is an absurd and misleading appel- 

 lation of the All of Pantheism. But we must go 

 further and assert that not even as a finite whole 

 can the All be rea/, and thereby destroy the whole 

 logical basis of Pantheism. For the Infinite or 

 absolute " God " of Pantheism is nothing but the 

 hypostasizatlon of the conception of the world as 

 a whole, nothing but the abstract conception of a 

 totality of things, nothing but the logical form of a 



I 



