4 i o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



" Still more manifest will this truth become when it is observed that our 

 conception of the Relative itself disappears, if our conception of the Absolute is 

 a pure negation. It is admitted, or rather it is contended, by the writers I have 

 quoted above, that contradictories can be known only in relation to each other — 

 that Equality, for instance, is unthinkable apart from its correlative Inequality ; 

 and that thus the Relative can itself be conceived only by opposition to the 

 Non-relative. It is also admitted, or rather contended, that the consciousness 

 of a relation implies a consciousness of both the related members. If we are 

 required to conceive the relation between the Relative and Non-relative without 

 being conscious of both, 'we are in fact (to quote the words of Mr. Mansel dif- 

 ferently applied) required to compare that of which we are conscious with that 

 of which we are not conscious; the comparison itself being an act of conscious- 

 ness, and only possible through the consciousness of both its objects,' What, 

 then, becomes of the assertion that ' the Absolute is conceived merely by a ne- 

 gation of conceivability,' or as ' the mere absence of the conditions under which 

 consciousness is possible ? ' If the Non-relative or Absolute is present in 

 thought only as a mere negation, then the relation between it and the Relative 

 becomes unthinkable, because one of the terms of the relation is absent from 

 consciousness. And if this relation is unthinkable, then is the Relative itself 

 unthinkable, for want of its antithesis : whence results the disappearance of all 

 thought whatever." — {First Principles, § 26.) 



On this argument Mr. Martineau comments as follows ; first re- 

 stating it in other words : 



"Take away its antithetic terra, and the relative, thrown into isolation, is 

 set up as absolute, and disappears from thought. It is indispensable, therefore, 

 to uphold the Absolute in existence, as condition of the relative sphere which 

 constitutes our whole intellectual domain. Be it so; but, when saved on this 

 plea — to preserve the balance and interdependence of two co-relatives — the 

 ' Absolute ' is absolute no more ; it is reduced to a term of relation ; it loses 

 therefore its exile from thought; its disqualification is canceled; and the 

 alleged nescience is discharged. 



" So, the same law of thought which warrants the existence, dissolves the 

 inscrutableness, of the Absolute.*' — {Essays, Philosophical and Theological, pp. 

 186, 187.) 



I admit this to be a telling rejoinder ; and one which can be met 

 only when the meanings of the words, as I have used them, are care- 

 fully discriminated, and the implications of the doctrine fully traced 

 out. We will begin by clearing the ground of minor misconceptions. 



First, let it be observed that, though I have used the word Abso- 

 lute as the equivalent of Non-relative, because it is used in the pas- 

 sages quoted from the writers I am contending against, yet I have 

 myself chosen for the purposes of my argument the name Non-relative, 

 and I do not necessarily commit myself to any propositions respecting 

 the Absolute, considered as that which includes both Subject and Ob- 

 ject. The Non-relative, as spoken of by me, is to be understood rather 

 as the totality of Being minus that which constitutes the individual 

 consciousness, present to us under forms of Relation. Did I use the 

 word in some Hegelian sense, as comprehensive of that which thinks 



