132 
We beg to remind Mr. Muller that part of this is assumed; 
what evidence have we that the first name for the earth ex- 
pressed anything more than what was perceived by the senses ? 
And the remainder is here irrelevant, he was to find the idea 
of the infinite by the five senses only, and the first step goes 
beyond sensation. Immediately after, he says : — 
“ It is not by reasoning only, as is generally supposed, that we know that 
there is an endless view beyond ; — we are actually brought in contact with 
it, we see and feel it .... we have before us, before our senses, the visible 
and the tangible infinite.” 
We demur to this, as contrary to all testimony of the 
senses, and as a result to be attained only by a process of 
reasoning which can never produce demonstration. And 
when the difficulty, which after the strong assertion yet seems 
to have remained, is evaded by saying, “ Infinite is not only 
that which has no limits, but it is to us , and it certainly was 
to our earliest ancestors, that also of which we cannot perceive 
the limits,” we must again say this also is irrelevant. That 
which was proposed was, to find the way by which the abso- 
lutely infinite one was perceived, directly or indirectly, by the 
senses. And to this end we do not advance a step by such 
statements as the following : — 
“ The more we advance the wider, no doubt, grows our horizon ; but there 
never is or can be to our senses a horizon unless as standing between the 
visible and finite on the one side, and the invisible and infinite on the other. 
The infinite, therefore, instead of being merely a late abstraction, is really 
implied in the earliest manifestations of our sensuous knowledge.” 
This cannot be. Our senses tell us of nothing beyond our 
horizon, and Mr. Muller thinks so, in spite of his seeming 
assurance, for he says : — 
il We must begin with a man living on high mountains, or in a vast plain, 
or on a coral island without hills and streams, surrounded on all sides by 
the endless expanse of the ocean, and screened above by the unfathomable 
blue of the sky ; and we shall then understand how, from the images thrown 
upon him by the senses, some idea of the infinite would arise in his mind 
earlier even than the concept of the finite, and would form the omnipresent 
background of the faintly dotted picture of his monotonous life.” * 
But this was not the condition of the first man or of any of 
the men to whom appeal is here made. But, if it were, how a 
man living on a plain with a view of less than ten miles in 
every direction can get by that limited horizon, from his 
senses, an idea of infinite extension, it is impossible to show. 
And, if it could be shown, it would not help in this case, 
* Hibbert Lecture , p. 38. 
