FUNDAMENTAL ASSUMPTIONS OF AGNOSTICISM EXAMINED. 185 



understand why it is tliat liberty to use higher powers than the 

 third in algebraical expressions should be assumed to indicate 

 the possibiUty of an indefinite aggregate of unimaginable modes 

 of extension over and above those three dimensions which con- 

 stitute what is known in this world as Space. That there are 

 unimaginable possibilities of existence, I do not say in space, 

 but, if I may so express myself, ahove it, and also above Time, 

 is a truth which forces itself upon me, if I persist in asking 

 what it is I have reached in thought when I have traced up all 

 succession to its beginning ; but the only pertinent hint I can 

 perceive in the mysteries of Number, is that they are applic- 

 able exclusively to the relations of originated existence, and 

 fail to throw any light whatever upon that which is from 

 everlasting. 



Turning now our attention once more to the " Antmomies " 

 to which I have alluded, we shall see no reason to wonder, if 

 the attempt to arrive at clear elementary conceptions has 

 involved us in a chaos of contradictions, and if every struggle 

 to get free has only proved to be a deeper plunge into a slough 

 of metaphysical obscurities ; nor yet shall we find that we 

 must needs despair of ever being able to extricate ourselves. 

 What, then, is to be done ? To allow the possibility of abso- 

 lute infinitude, whether in a numerator or in a numerical 

 denominator, would be to nullify one of those conceptions 

 which are, in the profoundest sense of the word, fundamental, 

 and is therefore beyond the power of thought. To fancy that it 

 admits of question is, relatively to it, thoughtlessly to acquiesce 

 when Eeason, who can tolerate no logical inconsistency, 

 resigns her office and leads an opposition ; it is, in fact, 

 to render government in the realm of thought impossible. 

 There is, however, it appears to me, a way of escape from 

 the perplexity, and, so far as I can see, there is but one way. 

 These '' Antinomies," it will be observed, assume that the 

 reach of the human mind is so circumscribed by Time and 

 Space that no properties or attributes of real being which 

 transcend the limits they impose admit of intellectual repre- 

 sentation in consistent concepts, and afibrd material available 

 for judgments and conclusions in the exercise of Pure Reason. 

 But this attempt to limit our intellectual horizon ignores, as I 

 have shown, considerations which necessitate the recognition 

 of a Being to whose duration the increments of ever-length- 

 ening time add nothing, and who may not be classed with 

 things determinable by any measure of space. A duration 

 that admits of division, or, which is the same thing, may be 

 represented as the multiple of some part, say a moment, how- 



