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the sum total of all phenomena, forces, and laws, a few ques- 
tions may be propounded for its solution. Is it nothing but 
these? Are phenomena and laws possessed of an objective 
existence, or must something else underlie them ? Are laws 
existences, or modes of existence, or what are they?. Are its 
forces actually existent things, or qualities inherent in^them ? 
Again, “ the Cosmos is the sum total of infinite worlds.” It is 
therefore infinite, but consists of finite parts. Can it therefore 
be a unity ? It follows, then, that that which is infinite 
is not absolutely unthinkable, and that some of the con- 
ceptions which are derived from our finite modes of being 
may be projected into it without violating any principle of sound 
philosophy. But further, this infinite universe consists of parts 
several of which are infinite ; it follows, therefore, that an infi- 
nitude which is composed of subordinate infinities, can constitute 
a unity. But, as a crowning mystery, we are told that it abides 
eternally unchanged in the constancy of its absolute energy 
amidst the everlasting revolution and mutation ot its parts. 
Surely a philosophy which admits a number of such positions 
among its fundamental principles may be asked to show a little 
modesty when it assails the difficulties of theism. The one 
contains unfathomable mysteries equally as the other. 
50. But, says our author, (( the Cosmos is a phoenix, ever 
recovering itself from its ashes.” Yes, surely, it is a conso- 
latory truth for men who will never renew their personal ex- 
istence to be assured that their remorseless parent never had a 
beginning to its activities, and never shall have an end, but that 
it shall continue throughout the infinities of time and space to 
cast up the bubbles of phenomena, and devour them, to reappear 
again in endless progression. Yet this is the god of this philo- 
sophy, who goes on endlessly reproducing himself, under the 
impulse of blind forces directed by equally blind laws, in endless 
forms of life and death, of reproduction and decay, throughout 
the dismal eternity of the future. Full well may Strauss s 
Atheist friend satirize the folly of such a god. But, no : he 
is alike incapable of wisdom and of folly ; though he contains in 
himself potentiality, and evolves into actuality all wisdom and 
all folly, all order and disorder, all growth and decay, all good 
and evil, all virtue and all crime. Verily, such a god cannot 
be a phoenix, but a Proteus. Yet our author, and those in 
whose name he speaks, assert that they think it worthy of a 
reverent regard, and that to insult it is a blasphemy ! 
51. There is an obvious difficulty which confronts this philo- 
sophy, of which it does not attempt to offer a solution. If the 
Cosmos is thus eternally reproductive, why may it not at some 
