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the apparent contradictions involved in our endeavours to comprehend the 
First Cause. And I think he has certainly laid himself open to the objection 
specified by Mr. Lias, and enlarged upon (though with a different object) by 
Mr. Spencer himself in the passage lately quoted. 
But Mr. Lias boldly denies that u the Infinite ” and “ the Absolute ” are 
terms properly applied to the Deity at all. And in this I believe he is right 
If God were to be conceived of as “ the Infinite,” we could scarcely think it true 
that He cannot do evil, depart from truth, or deny Himself ; for these 
are limitations to His character. And if He were to be conceived of as “ the 
Absolute ” He could not stand in the relation of Creator to the universe, since 
to be absolute is to be free from relation to any thing whatever. In short, 
these negative terms are apt to mislead. "Why not speak of God as a 'perfect 
Being ? This is a positive idea, however inadequate. We can conceive of Him 
as perfectly wise, by thinking of all His actions as guided by consummate 
wisdom ; as perfectly just, by thinking of all His actions as free from the 
slightest taint of injustice ; and so of His other attributes. 
Again, Mr. Lias appears to me to be quite correct in tracing the mistakes 
on this head to the doctrine that abstract ideas have an objective existence. 
In this he agrees with Bishop Berkeley, although I do not think he would 
concur in the view maintained by the latter, that a denial of the objectivity 
of abstract ideas must lead logically to the denial of an external world. At 
least I profess myself unable to adopt that conclusion. Berkeley goes upon 
the old supposition that the idea of an external object is a representation or 
likeness of that object, and inasmuch as there can be no resemblance between 
a thought in the mind and an object outside the mind, he concludes that 
there is no such object. But why must the idea of an external object be a 
likeness of it ? Can we not conceive such an object to be perceived by the 
mind without there being any likeness between it and the idea it excites ? 
If an object be supposed to be presented to the senses, thereby exciting 
certain sensations of colour, figure, sound, &c., what impossibility can there 
be in such a supposition ? It is quite a gratuitous assumption to say there 
must be a likeness between the outward object and the sensations which it 
excites. How such sensations are produced by it, we know not. The effect 
of matter on mind, as has been already observed, is admitted to be utterly 
incomprehensible by us. So far as we know, therefore, it is quite as possible 
that objects should affect our minds in one way as in another, seeing that 
they do affect them. 
But to return to the subject of abstract ideas, with respect to which we are at 
one with Bishop Berkeley, though not with respect to the doctrine he considers 
it to lead to, we may join him in his laugh against Locke’s description of such 
an idea. Taking as an example the general idea of a triangle, this philosopher 
says (Book IV., chap. 7, sec. 9) : “ it must be neither oblique nor rectangle, 
neither equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenon, but all and none of these at 
once.” Now, I venture to think that Locke here inadvertently used the 
wrong conjunction. Instead of saying <£ neither equilateral, equicrural, nor 
scalenon,” I think he should have said t( either equilateral, equicrural, or 
