4 i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the relations between an inch and either of them become practically 

 inconceivable. Now, this partial failure in the process of forming 

 thought-relations, which happens even with finite magnitudes when 

 one of them becomes immense, becomes complete failure when one of 

 the magnitudes cannot be brought within any limits. The relation 

 itself becomes unrepresentable at the same time that one of its terms 

 becomes unrepresentable. Nevertheless, in this case it is to be ob- 

 served that the almost blank form of relation preserves a certain 

 qualitative character. It is still distinguishable as belonging to the 

 consciousness of extensions, not to the consciousnesses of forces or 

 durations ; and in so far remains a vaguely-identifiable relation. But 

 now suppose we ask what happens when one term of the relation has 

 not simply magnitude having no known limits, and duration of which 

 neither beginning nor end is cognizable, but is also an existence not 

 to be defined ? In other words, what must happen if one term of the 

 relation is not only quantitatively but also qualitatively unrepresenta- 

 ble ? Clearly in this case the relation does not simply cease to be 

 thinkable except as a relation of a certain class, but it lapses com- 

 pletely. When one of the terms becomes wholly unknowable, the law 

 of thought can no longer be fulfilled ; both because one term cannot 

 be present, and because at the same time relation itself cannot be 

 framed. That is to say, the law of thought, that contradictories can 

 be known only in relation to each other, fails when thought attempts 

 to transcend the Relative ; and yet, when it attempts to transcend the 

 Relative, it must make the attempt in conformity with its law — must 

 in some dim mode of consciousness posit a Non-relative, and, in some 

 similarlv dim mode of consciousness, a relation between it and the 

 Relative. In brief, then, to Mr. Martin eau's objection I reply, that the 

 insoluble difficulties he indicates arise here, as elsewhere, when thought 

 is applied to that which transcends the sphere of thought ; and that, 

 just as, when we try to pass beyond phenomenal manifestations to the 

 Ultimate Reality manifested, we have to symbolize it out of such 

 materials as the phenomenal manifestations give us, so we have simul- 

 taneously to symbolize the connection between this Ultimate Reality 

 and its manifestations as somehow allied to the connections among the 

 phenomenal manifestations themselves. The truth Mr. Martineau's 

 criticism adumbrates is, that the law of thought fails where the ele- 

 ments of thought fail ; and this is a conclusion quite conformable to 

 the general view I defend. Still holding the validity of my argument 

 against Hamilton and Mansel, that in pursuance of their own principle 

 the Relative is not at all thinkable as such, unless in contradistinction 

 to some existence posited, however vaguely, as the other term of a 

 relation conceived, however indefinitely, it is, I think, consistent on 

 my part to hold that, in this effort which thought inevitably makes to 

 pass beyond its sphere, not only does the product of thought become 

 a dim symbol of a product, but the process of thought becomes a dim 



