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We know no quality as existing which we have not perceived in some concrete 
being ; for example, we should never know a colour if we had not seen it, 
and we can form no idea of it until we have seen it with our senses. All our 
notions, therefore, of existing things are limited by our perceptions of their 
qualities. Have we, then, ever come in contact with any existence in such a 
way that we can perceive its infinity ? We have thus come in contact with 
finity ; but I certainly never have with infinity, and I doubt much whether 
any one else has 
Rev. W. Mitchell. — I think we did the other night. I gave a small 
demonstration. * 
Mr. Warington. — I wish I had been here ; it would have been quite a 
new sensation ! But it will be said infinity is not a positive, but a negative 
quality. What, then, is its inevitable characteristic ? That it is limited as a 
quality by that of which it is a negative. For example, if I name the 
quality non-redness, I am simply negativing redness as far as I know 
redness ; and I can do no more, for I cannot negative that which I do not 
know ; my negation is strictly limited by its corresponding positive. So, 
when I negative finiteness, all I can say is, I have stretched my reason to the 
very utmost point as regards extension, and still my conception is bounded, 
still I have got limits ; I believe that my conception herein is untrue, I 
believe there are no limits. Have I grasped the infinite ? No. I have 
simply denied that anything I can conceive is a sufficient measure of that 
which really exists ; but as to getting the measure of that, there you utterly 
fail. At the same time, the application which Professor Mansel makes of 
that argument is, it seems to me, utterly erroneous ; for he says, because w'e 
cannot get a full measure, a perfect conception, therefore we cannot get a 
true idea at all. But I do not see why, if I have not full knowledge of 
extension, my knowledge, so far as it goes, is therefore not true. Or why, if 
I have an imperfect knowledge of love, and cannot grasp its full measure, my 
knowledge of love should not be a true one so far as it goes. And if so, why 
must I not have a true knowledge of God, although I grasp not the infinite, 
the absolute, the First Cause ? (Hear, hear.) But now, to come to the real 
essence of the paper, the difficulty of reconciling together the uniformity of 
nature with the effectiveness of prayer. Taking up that thought which I 
threw out just now, that man alone is out of harmony with nature, what is 
necessary in order that man should receive those blessings which God 
originally designed for him ? Why, simply this, that he should place himself 
in harmony with nature and God. And is not that exactly the true 
efficiency of prayer ? Man by prayer places himself once more in his true 
position towards God, in such a position, therefore, that he can receive what 
* Mr. Mitchell referred to a model by means of which he showed at the 
last ordinary Meeting the passage of one crystalline form bounded by 8 faces 
through an infinite variety of other forms bounded by 24 faces, and then to 
another bounded by 12 faces only ; thus visibly producing an infinite series 
of forms in one second of time, and within a finite space. 
