240 
is really such a conception present in the mind, it necessarily 
involves the existence of an external antitype : as therefore we 
have the idea of the Infinite, the Infinite must needs exist; 
as we have the idea of the Perfect, there must be a Perfect Being 
to correspond to it ; the notion could not have been generated 
in the mind itself by a process of tampering with notions 
already there, derived from experience, but must be traceable 
to some external and independently existent origin. 
The opposite view I cannot set forth better than in the 
words of Locke. He repudiates the view that there can be 
any notion of the Infinite as such ; and therefore, of course, 
would deride as a mere fancy the belief that there was any 
existence corresponding to a mere negative notion. He 
accounts for the origin of such notions thus : — 
“Every one,” he says (ii. 17, §3) “that has any idea of 
any stated length of space, as a foot, finds that he can repeat 
that idea ; and joining it to the former, make the idea of two 
feet; and by the addition of a third, three feet; and so on, with- 
out ever comiug to an end of his addition, whether of the same 
idea of a foot, or, if he pleases, of doubling it, or any other idea 
he has of any length, as a mile, or diameter of the earth, or of 
the orbis magnus ; for, whichsoever of these lie takes, and how 
often soever he doubles or any otherwise multiplies it, he finds 
that after he has continued his doubling in his thoughts, and 
enlarged his idea as much as he pleases, he has no more reason 
to stop, or is one jot nearer the end of such addition, than lie 
was at first setting out. The power of enlarging his idea of space 
by farther additions remaining still the same, he hence takes 
the idea of infinite space As by the power we find in 
ourselves of repeating as often as we will any idea of space we 
get the idea of immensity, so by being able to repeat the idea of 
any length of duration we have in our minds, with all the end- 
less addition of number, we come by the idea of eternity.” 
It would be over-refinement to point out here the confusion 
between linear extension and space, the more so as the confusion 
does not affect the argument. The answer to Locke, it seems 
to me, would be this, that he is describing not the formation of 
a notion of the Infinite from the perceptions of the Finite, but 
the struggle in the mind to bring down its transcendental notion 
of the unlimited to its experience of the concrete and limited ; he 
docs not prove that there is no idea of the absolute, but shows 
that, there being such an idea, we are always endeavouring to 
realize it. 
But it would be an unwarrantable departure from my subject 
to fight the battle of Aquinas against Abelard, Locke against 
