103 
curiously enough, to make use of them only when religion is 
in question, and to forget them when he is concerned with 
anything else. He begins his dealings with visible phenomena 
by discussing three possible hypotheses of the origin of things, 
each of which he dismisses as equally <c unthinkable.” The 
supposition of a First Cause is set aside in a similar manner. 
There can be no First cause, because the idea of a First cause 
involves us in metaphysical contradictions. 
8. In his next chapter he discusses space and time. These, 
too, he finds to be equally unthinkable. They are “ unthink- 
able as entities.” We can assert “ limitation or the absence 
of limitation ” of neither of them (p. 48). We cannot form the 
conception of unbounded space and time. As little can we 
conceive of “ bounds beyond which ” they are not to be found. 
On the same principles with which Mr. Spencer deals with 
self- existence, with Creation, with a First Cause, we are com- 
pelled to abandon all attempts to think of space and time.* 
9. The same is the case with the divisibility of matter. We 
can only reason about or discover natural phenomena by the 
assumption of indefinitely small portions of matter entitled 
atoms. But the supposition involves us in equal contra- 
dictions. You can only really conceive of the infinite divisi- 
bility of matter by following out the process to infinity, and 
this would require infinite time (pp. 50-54). Nor can yon 
imagine material parts so small that no material power can 
divide them ; for, as he shows, this supposition involves 
absurdities as great as those which are involved in the former. 
Consequently matter itself belongs to the unthinkable,! and 
everything that deals with matter, all physical science, all 
history, even man himself, must be unthinkable too. 
10. Motion is next discussed, and the conclusion to which 
we come is that (( all efforts to understand its essential nature 
do but bring us to alternative impossibilities of thought ” 
(p. 58). Force is in the same condition. It is impossible to 
form any idea of Force in itself,” and “ it is equally impossible 
to comprehend its mode of exercise” (p. 61). Of the extent 
of consciousness we are told that we are equally unable to 
believe it to be infinite, or to conceive of it as finite ; its 
substance, that is, “ the personality of which each is conscious ” 
is a thing “ knowledge of ” which “ is forbidden by the very 
laws of thought” (p. 63). 
11. This process might be carried on almost to any extent. 
Not only the root-conceptions of the individual and of the 
* They are “ wholly incomprehensible,” p. 50. 
t “ Matter, then, in its ultimate nature, is as absolutely inconceivable 
as space and time,” p. 54. 
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