124 PEOF. FEEEIEE ON KNOWING AND BEING. 



osophy opposed to, but on the contrary all its conclusions are in 

 beautiful harmony with, what revelation teaches, that God "is not far 

 from every one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being." 

 The universe was not created once for all, and then left in some in- 

 conceivable condition of independent and abiding existence ; but it 

 is at every instant upheld by Grod ; it is a continued product of the 

 continued exercise of his power. It has often been remarked that to 

 sustain the worlds which have been made requires an exercise of 

 power not less than was implied in their original formation : but in- 

 deed it may be questioned whether there is really any essential dif- 

 ference between creating and sustaining. Creation is a putting 

 forth of divine energy, in virtue of which something is, where other- 

 wise nothing would have been ; and is not the Divine Being, in sus- 

 taining the universe, constantly exerting an energy, wanting which 

 the universe would not be ? 



It may perhaps be thought that the course of remark by which it 

 has been shewn that the object of perception, the existence imme- 

 diately manifested in the perceptive act, always is (in the sense ex- 

 plained) a synthesis of the Ego and of the Xon-ego, would suffice to 

 prove that every object known by auy intelligence, or any where ex- 

 isting, is a similar synthesis. For, knowledge (it may be said) of 

 whatever description, being a relation between subject and object, a 

 relation to which both terms are necessary, and whose character is 

 due partly to the one, and partly to the other, neither the subject 

 per se nor the object per se, can be said to be known ; but the object 

 known, which is only logically different from the knowledge realised, 

 i3 a synthesis of the two. Hence also, unless there be some exist- 

 ence absolutely unknowable, whatever exists must be a synthesis of 

 subject and object. Must then the conclusions of Professor Ferrier's 

 Institutes be accepted without limitation? If all knowledge be a re- 

 lation, they undoubtedly must. Here, however, the question meets 

 us: is all knowledge a relation ? To assume this, would be quite un- 

 warrantable. I allow that I have no conception of any knowledge 

 which is not a relation ; that is, I can frame to myself no direct posi- 

 tive conception of any existence which is not, like my own as revealed 

 in consciousness, a subject standing in relation to an object ; and it 

 might therefore seem that I am shut up to go the whole length of 

 our author's sj'stem. But no. There may be more things existing 

 than man is able to conceive. In particular, it is necessary to guard 

 against supposing that the Divine existence involves relation in any 

 such sense as that in which the term is employed when we speak of 

 those successive relations between Self and ZSot-self, of which our 



