570 INTELLECTUAL SYMBOLISM. 
objects of its cognition (OS), the senses, which are the immediate avenues for our inter- 
course with the external world, may be regarded as the sole instruments of knowledge, 
and the sensual school will then appear to embrace all the correct expounders of the mys- 
teries of nature. If the mind be assumed as its own sole interpreter of truth (SS), and no 
importance is attached to any external means for verifying its inferences or removing 
whatever doubts may arise, we shall soon be landed in inevitable Skepticism. If the 
reality of things be regarded as precisely commensurate with the reality of thought (SO), 
the broad foundation of Idealism is laid. If an attempt be made to exclude all mental 
bias and coloring, and to penetrate the crust of phenomena, in order to ascertain the sub- 
stantial nature of things as they are in themselves (OO), the unconscious deductions of 
analogy may be assumed as the illuminations of absolute, unmodified, and unrelated truth, 
and the result will be Mysticism. 
438. To a perfect intelligence, it might be a matter of indifference what system of exe- 
gesis should be adopted, but the finite mind cannot concentrate its attention upon any 
single point, without slighting to some extent, other points that are important in forming 
accurate general conclusions. A liberal Eclecticism, that attempts to embrace in its range 
of vision the whole landscape of truth, may have the most correct idea of the relative 
bearing of all the different portions, but it will lose many of the most beautiful features 
that a closer local inspection would discover. Although its creed may contain the most 
correct exposition of the “Common Sense” of the race at the moment, it will contribute 
comparatively little, except by its exposition of the true state and needs of philosophy, to 
the progress that is mainly effected by myriads of co-workers, who may each be men of 
“one idea,” but whose combined labors tend to the contemporaneous development of many 
ideas. 
CHAPTER XIV. 
THE ABSOLUTE. 
439. Tux goal, as well as the starting-point,—the Omega as well as the Alpha of Philo- 
sophy, is the Absolute.* ‘The love of wisdom commences in Faith, and in Faith alone can 
* © There are three terms, familiar as household words, in the vocabulary of philosophy, which must be taken 
into account in every system of Metaphysical Theology. To conceive the Deity as He is, we must conceive Him 
as First Cause, as Absolute, and as Infinite. By the First Cause, is meant that which produces all things, and is 
itself produced of none. By the Adsolude, is meant that which exists in and by itself, having no necessary rela- 
