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science is urged by a logic that is false. “ The reason of man, 
says Mr. Lefes, “is incompetent to know God because reason 
is finite, and the finite cannot embrace the infinite. this is 
the way reason is excluded from religion and 
as its only sphere. For surely the idea of God is the foundatioi 
of all religion. But if God cannot be known, rt : is i impossi ® 
for man to sustain any intelligent relations to Him. A Go 
who cannot be known must be to man as if he were not. But 
if he is to be known, it must be by reason in some of its 
functions. Simply to say that the finite cannot embrace 
the infinite, and cannot therefore know God, is simpty to 
bandage the eyes and then maintain that there is no light 
the room. For, to know God, it is not necessary to embrace 
the infinite; that is, it is not necessary to be equal with God 
The mind may not inclose the infinite, and yet it may wi 
Perfect ease lay hold on it; may not comprehend it while it 
may easily enough apprehend it. Just as the physicist appre- 
hends science while he does not comprehend it, fifing that 
while he has come to the shore a measureless sea still stretches 
before him. he may indeed know that science has its limits, a 
that therefore, it may be comprehended ; but even that though 
will" shut him up l the ilu.ion thut these ,» > 
behind science sustaining that finite thing which s the sphere 
of science. Barrow asks, “Is the ocean less visible because, 
standing upon the shore, we canno oiscovei ^ 
bounds?” The same thought had been given by Descaites. 
Cudworthhas said “ We may approach near to a mountain, a 
touch it with our hands, though we cannot encompass it all 
round and enclasp it within our arms/ Mansel s s use > o ^ the 
word indefinite is a defective rejoinder and leaves the q^sti 
where it was. For who can think of the finite, as fin ne without 
thinking of the infinite? or the contingent as contingent, an 
“ink of the necessary? Or the temporal b as temporal, 
and not think of the eternal? There is ™uch meaningless 
writing about not knowing God because we canno ‘ 
the infinite For, what is there even m finite science of whic 
a man may say lie knows it perfectly? Mr. Lewes has written 
much about philosophy, but will he profess to kno'V'tsoast 
“embrace” it? No doubt his thought has gone a good way 
round the mountain ; he knows a little more now than when 
he represented the formula of causation as “ every existence 
must have a cause;” but has he embraced the mountain? I 
then we can know nothing about any one person or thing t 
we have comprehended the whole, there is no knowledge on 
the earth, and, therefore, physicists and philosophers mig 
a little more humble, and a little less dogmatic. If the 
