180 BEV. H. J. CLARKE. 



contemplation. Will a sound philosophy admit the possibility 

 of its having no first link ? Plainly it cannot ; it must assume 

 without hesitation that a succession can in no wise be con- 

 ceived except as finite ; in other words^ that the conception of 

 Number, involving as it does that of repetition, includes of 

 necessity the conception of tivo terms, — namely, unity and the 

 term which its repetition yields, a beginning and an end, the 

 latter being a movable limit so long as the repetition is con- 

 ceived to be in progress, and becoming stationary at the 

 point where it is supposed to cease. The chain, then, it is 

 evident, has a first link, the succession must have had a 

 beginning. The truth thus stated is very obvious ; and yet, 

 to perceive it is to make a great discovery, if it flashes upon 

 a mind preoccupied with the notion of a phenomenal world 

 which has been in existence from everlasting ; for nothing 

 is more certain than that such a world is impossible. A 

 series of evolutions, developments, or geneses, — ^let us call 

 them what we will, — a series of pi'ogressions, continuous, or 

 alternating with retrogressions, a series of changes of any 

 description whatsoever, could nowhere have had place, — could 

 not have unfolded itself even in conception, — without having 

 at some time or other originated. 



But what use will the true philosopher make of this dis- 

 covery ? Enough has been said to render it apparent that 

 he cannot assume as the fundamental cause of a phenomenal 

 universe a diffused and mobile kind of essence whose functions 

 and properties find therein just that expression which is con- 

 formable to its own nature, — find it, namely, in an aggregate 

 of countless manifestations. He must needs perceive that 

 the Grod of Spinoza, with his so-called Infinite Attributes 

 and the so-called Infinite Modes or affections of his substance, 

 is a thing of Time and Space, — is a chain, and therefore, 

 however long, of necessity hangs from something, and is in 

 all directions bounded by limitless room for enlargement. 

 If he should thread his way through the elaborate concatena- 

 tion of propositions, corollaries, and scholia, in which that 

 acute and original thinker with meritorious patience expounds 

 his philosophy, he will not fail to see that the word Deus, as 

 there used, is a sound without meaning, and wholly unfitted 

 to give support to an ethical system. Indeed, this misappli- 

 cation of a supremely important word is apologetically 

 confessed by modern admirers and disciples of Spinoza, not- 

 withstanding that of course they agree with him in ascribing 

 to the universal system of phenomenal relations, and to the 

 constituent material which it presupposes, considered as such. 



