524 INTELLECTUAL SYMBOLISM. 
much as thought implies attribution,—we must still exclude the attribute of Absoluteness, 
which brings us to the’ Zero, or Pure Nothing of Hegel and Oken.* 
250. It seems strange that any one should ever have attempted to reason about an idea 
that is so vague, indefinite, and indefinable, and yet on such groundless reasoning have 
been mooted some of the most profound problems of metaphysics. The arguments, of 
course, are all drawn from that which is supposed to be known,—from the finite and _rela- 
tive,—and as it is easy to find opposing and contradictory relations, we may easily obtain 
contradictory conclusions, provided we take the first false step of admitting that relation, 
or the consequences of relation, can be predicated of that which is devoid of all relation. 
251. Kant disposes of the Antinomies properly enough, by what he terms the Skeptical 
method, that is to say, by inquiring whether the object of dispute “‘ may not, perhaps, be 
a mere delusion, at which each catches in vain, and whereby he can gain nothing, al- 
though he were not at all to be opposed.”+ ir some cases, however (e. g., in the mathe- 
matical fallacies, pp. 506-7), the skeptical method would not be applicable, not, as Kant 
states, because “its use would be absurd,” > but because every false, absurd, or contradic- 
tory conclusion results from the employment of equivocal premises, and the philosophical 
investigator should endeavor to trace the equivocation to its lurking-place. 
202. ‘THE ANTINOMY OF Pure REaAson.} 
“ First Contradiction of Transcendental Ideas. 
« THEsIs. “¢ ANTITHESIS. 
“The world has a beginning in time, and is also in- “The world has no beginning, and no limits in 
closed as to space, in limits. space, but is, as well in respect of time as of space, in- 
finite. 
“ Proof. 
“For, if we admit that the world has no commence- 
ment as to time, an eternity, then, has elapsed up to 
each given point of time, and consequently, an infinite 
series of states of things, following upon one another 
-in the world, has passed away. But now the infinity 
of aseries consists in this very thing,—that it can never 
be completed by successive synthesis. Consequently 
“ Proof. 
“Tet it then be supposed that it has a Restanices 
As the Beginning is an existence which a time pre- 
ceded, wherein the thing is not; a time must have 
gone before, wherein the world was not, that is, a 
void time. But now, in a void time, no origin of any- 
thing is possible, because no part of such a time has in 
itself, prior to another, any distinctive condition of ex- 
* «The Intuition of God = the Absolute = the Nothing, we [also] find asserted by the lower Platonists, by the 
Buddhists, and by Jacob Boehme.”’ Hamilton, Discussions, p. 28. 
+ P.301. 
{ Kant, pp. 803-307. 
