“ Ultimate Religious Ideas." 
1884.] 
5ii 
considering these principles as attributes. If viewed as 
merely attributes, and not as one principle differently 
designating the same being, they seem to imply contra- 
diction. 
. Why are these, said to be “ indispensable ” qualities, to be 
viewed as attributes, which when conjoined as one being 
contains within itself the substance of all : there are no 
opposites ? We might as well, in describing anything which 
has various designations, call these designations attributes, 
and treat them as opposites although each designation is 
the consistent whole, notwithstanding its nomenclature. 
View the attributes as constituting the entirety of a being 
coming into existence at the same moment as a whole. We 
are then rid of the intolerable finesse of the Absolute, the 
Infinite, the Cause. Whether it be by Sir Wm. Hamilton, 
Dean Mansell, or Mr. Spencer that the distinctions are 
raised, they appear to have their consummation in the 
desire which exists in the minds of many to make that 
which may be the simple, the complex by rules of logic 
(setting apart the idea that the finite can never comprehend 
the infinite). There appears to be no necessity in the pre- 
miss to consider the three other than as a consolidated 
whole. Why should they be marshalled as opposites ? It 
serves no purpose in the conception of a God, for attributes 
are but emanations, although each viewed in its integrity 
has the significance of a complete whole. We may differ- 
entiate phenomena, but it seems an absurdity to differentiate 
that which in its own substance and consistency is all 
things. I may cause an effeCt ; surely it will not be said 
the effeCt is opposed to the cause, or can usurp its place as 
a cause ; it is a mere result from an existing something 
which may be done, or not done, as the operator wills. If 
the three flow from the one and constitute the one, the 
aspects become and are the thing, as consciousness, intelli- 
gence, will. It may be intelligence in one sense, will in 
another, but all the aspects are recognised in consciousness. 
If an absolute is conceived, there can be neither conditions 
nor parts. It is not because a cause is contained in the ab- 
solute that the cause is so conditioned (i.e., a cause as an 
infinite projection) that it ceases to be a part of the absolute 
from which it emanates. So with infinite or infinitude ; it 
is but a principle contained in the absolute. It is said “ a 
cause as such cannot be absolute, nor the absolute as such 
a cause but if the cause is an effeCt of the absolute there 
is no reason to suppose the cause is the equal of the abso- 
lute, for if the absolute is conceived to precede the cause, 
