lUNDAMKNTAf, ASSU.M l"l'l<)\S oK .\< INOS'I ICISM KA'AM IN' KH. 197 



THE AUTHOR'S REPLY. 



I HAVE to thank Mr. Collins for t;'lving me occasion to make a few remarks 

 in elncidation of the reasoning which connects the opening sentence in the 

 first ])araorapli of page 182 in my paper with the conclnsion reached at the 

 end of the paragraph. As will easily be perceived, my previous analysis of 

 the conception of number underlies? the argument. I assume that the 

 absolutely infinite cannot be conceived as admitting of division. This 

 assumption obviously has for its immediate basis fundamental conditions of 

 thought. For how is a part of the infinite to be represented in thought ? It 

 must be either infinite or finite. But it cannot be infinite without equalling 

 the whole, on which supposition no division has taken place ; nor can it be 

 finite without being contained in the whole an absolutely infinite number of 

 times, a supposition plainly forbidden by the concejjtion of number. More- 

 over, the essentially indivisible is unmistakably the essentially simple, no 

 argument being needed to render it evident that resolution or decompo- 

 sition of any kind implies division. 



Now, although the conception of an absolutely Infinite Being takes its rise 

 in the failure of all eft'orts — a failure perceived to be inevitable — to assign in 

 thought a beginning to duration, yet, of course, it matters not whether 

 infinity be considered relatively to time or to space, so far as regards the 

 relations of the infinite in the abstract to fundamental conditions of thought. 

 Here, indeed, the question may occur, " Why must the infinite, or — to use 

 a strictly accurate and unambiguous term — the unconditioned— in respect to 

 time, be assumed to be also infinite or unconditioned relatively to space ? " 

 Not being engaged, however, in a controversy which hinges upon this ques- 

 tion, I presumed I might be permitted to leave it to be inferred that, as 

 there is no possibility of arriving at a metaphysically determinate conception 

 of the necessary existence of any space-conditioned being, seeing that size 

 and dimensions can have no relation whatever to interminable vacuity, 

 subjection to space can be no condition of that eternal existence which we 

 are compelled by fundamental conditions of thought to recognise as neces- 

 sary. In fact, no relations pertinent to my reasoning are conceivable but 

 such as may be perceived in the investigation of these fundamental condi- 

 tions. These, accordingly, and not any superimposed inferences from empiri- 

 cally-prepared data, are what constitute the immediate foundation for my 

 assumption that the manifold owes its being to the simple, — namely, must 

 have issued from it into actual existence, and, therefore, must have previously 

 existed in it potentially from all eternity. 



I do not pretend to have thus demonstrated the inconceivableness of 

 origination apart from intellect and will. So far as the object I had in 

 view was concerned, it sufficed for me to show — and this I have endeavoured 

 to show — that, when we proceed to reason about the being and attributes of 



