249 
the universal, omnipotent Reason, being substantially undis- 
tinguishable from the world, and attaining to self-knowleage 
only in man, and the “ Nature ” of naturalism, an equally im- 
personal abstraction, must of necessity be deemed, by those 
who believe in them, to do all the mighty works of the uni- 
verse, not knowing what they do. Even materialism, in its less 
consistent forms (and when was materialism ever perfectly self- 
consistent? how can it be?), is found introducing the same 
principle in its unguarded utterances, practically merging itself 
(as in some ancient instances) in naturalism, or alleging (through 
the mouth of certain of its distinguished modern votaries) a 
natural “ Instinct of Necessity/’ or that “Necessity, or the 
enchainment of causes in the world, is Reason herself.” 
The undisciplined and unenlightened fancy of the ancient 
Orient revelled in imaginings, serious and ingenious, but also 
often grotesque, concerning a universal and original nature, at 
once spiritual (or spiritual and material, or else transcending 
spirit and matter) and unconscious. Thus the absolute being of 
the Vedas is reported to be pure cognition, which yet neither 
knows nor is known. The Hindoo Kapila, in the Sankhya, 
tells of a cosmic nature which is at once unbegotten and all- 
begetting, which works rationally, as in view of definite ends, 
and yet unconsciously. It may be that the early theogonic 
and cosmogonic speculations of other nations expressed or 
implied a similar fancy, as in the divine Night of Egyptian 
belief, or the original Chaos of Grecian mythology. 
We need not seek for vestiges of the doctrine in question in 
the pre-Socratic philosophy of Greece, partly because of the 
fragmentary nature of our knowledge of that philosophy, and 
partly because it was not until the time of bocrates and his 
disciples that the notion of mind and its functions became 
clearly and emphatically defined. In the system of Plato there 
is, on the one hand, the evident tendency and endeavour to 
raise the idea of God (the idea of Good) to the highest degree 
of abstract perfection. The good is the king in the realm of 
being ( i.e . of ideas), the cause and distributor of all true 
being, to which it is itself superior ; it is a thing ineffable. On 
the other hand, in the mythical and more popular (or, as he 
also terms them, the “ probable ”) expositions of Plato, the 
position is firmly held, that the universe is the product and 
exhibition of mind, that God was good, and willed that the 
world should be as nearly as possible like Himself. To what- 
ever conclusion the dialectical reasoning of Plato, carried out 
to its logical consequences, might lead, there is not the slightest 
reason to suppose that in his practical intention he looked upon 
