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“ legitimate inference” from the facts of the case. And a most 
pregnant inference it is. For, in view of it, we see that His 
actings Who is the Great Cause must be varied to meet in true 
wisdom all the varied actings of created minds, so that in the 
fresh circumstances perpetually arising, the best that is pos- 
sible may be ever done. 
It is time now to look out beyond the world of merely 
created minds and things. We have so far anticipated this : 
but the change of view must be made deliberately and with 
great care. As we rise from minds that are limited to that 
mind which alone is infinite, and from those who are imper- 
fect to Him Who is perfect in the fullest sense, we are beset 
with hosts of metaphysical bewilderings. We are told that we 
“ cannot know,” and yet it is made to appear as if we cannot 
help knowing. It is said that we cannot reason , but we must 
believe ! This is not satisfactory to our thinking, so we must 
try whether reasoning is impossible, as we are told. 
There is perhaps no region of thought that more urgently 
requires reforming than that in which we meet with what men 
call “the Infinite and the Absolute.” Sir William Hamilton 
was one of the most influential of all mystifiers in this region, 
and he has been followed by a disciple who carries his mysti- 
fications to an amazing degree of perfection. We cannot help 
believing that a world of good must spring from any thorough 
change in this branch of speculation. John Stuart Mill, with 
all his faults, has done good service here.* Saisset has done 
yet nobler work in the same direction, f The change wanted 
seems greatly to consist in a fair distinction between infinity 
as an overstrained idea, and infinity as a mode of being in 
one who is properly the Infinite. “ The Finite ” abstractly is 
nothing. “ The Infinite ” in the abstract is just as truly nothing. 
A finite person or thing is that which is limited in its mode of 
being. An infinite person or thing is that which in one or more 
modes of its being is unlimited. The Omnipotent is unlimited 
in power; the Omniscient is unlimited in knowledge. But these 
ideas of infinity do not come up to the ideal — we might say the 
idol — of certain philosophers. They insist that we must be- 
lieve in such an “ Absolute and Infinite ” as is “ the comple- 
ment of the relative and the finite ” — that is, in such an 
absolute as has no relations , and such an infinite as suffers 
no distinctions ! I am not at all sure as to those so-called 
“ necessary beliefs ” They remind us of a case in which the 
* See his Examination of Sir JV. Hamilton's Philosophy, pages 42 to 56. 
Edition 1865. 
t See his Modern Pantheism , Yol. II., pages 46 to 76, Ed. 1863. 
