Evolution of Theology. 249 



not a derived form of thought. To affirm limitations or 

 relations in an Infinite, in any possible aspect 'either of 

 thought or existence, is to fundamentally destroy the very 

 idea of an Infinite. Now, all merely human thought and 

 existence arise and develop under certain well known and 

 recognized limitations of Time, Space and physical and 

 mental activity. In short, all human mind and action are 

 inexorably conditioned by certain external factors, viz., 

 natural forces and social forces ; and also by certain sub- 

 jective factors, viz., processes of mental action, which be- 

 come known to us in the light of consciousness. But what 

 is consciousness, and what does it imply ? What conscious- 

 ness is, in and of itself, must remain forever unknown to 

 us. It is simply "the light of all our seeing." It, however, 

 involves two things : first, a person who is conscious ; sec- 

 ondly, a something external to himself of which he is con- 

 scious. That is, a subject, the person ; and an object external 

 to him, upon which he exercises his faculty of perception. 

 Human consciousness, and therefore all human knowledge, 

 are wholly relative ; but this cannot be the case with the 

 Infinite. To apply such conditions to the Infinite would 

 be to affirm that the Infinite cognized something external to 

 itself as an object of knowledge. It would impose upon it 

 a limitation which would be destructive to the Idea. Nor 

 can we in anywise seek to express the Infinite in any form 

 of definition. We must simply affirm that it is and there 

 cease ; for all definition must be in terms of human speech, 

 and therefore essentially fail to conform to the Idea, — as 

 much so as if we attempted to express the idea of infinite 

 space by the measurements of a yard-stick. 



We must, therefore, says this latest school, cease from 

 all speculation as to the essential nature and mode of being 

 of tlie Infinite, and accept an Absolute which is to us Un- 

 knowable as the primary philosophical conception. "The 

 Absolute," to quote the words of Dean Mansel,* " is a term 

 expressing no object of thought, but only a denial of the 

 relation by which Thought is constituted." 



The Doctrine of the Absolute, declining to describe the In- 

 finite in terms even of Universal Soul or Universal Mind, 

 brings us to the ultimate, most abstract position which Meta- 

 physics and Speculation can reach, beyond which there can be 

 nothing further, unless we choose to deliver ourselves over to 



* Limits of Religious Thought. 



