temperature, and the like, it can always be shown that some relation to something else, as for instance the relation of cause and effect, is always concerned therein. Hence we see that an absolute, a thing in itself out of relation to anything else, is removed altogether out of our knowledge. Yet we do mentally conceive that there is such a thing. We do so if it be only by contrast. Hence comes the idea of the Absolute, an idea, be it observed, which is only a creation of the mind, and that of a negative and undefined sort, not a mental creation like the hypotheses of natural philosophy, which are framed to explain facts of observation and in accordance with laws or

analogies of nature. Before leaving this part of my subject I ought perhaps to add that some variation or ambiguity seems to have attended the use of this word Absolute. Sometimes it seems to have stood for that which may exist out of relation, as explained above; sometimes for that which must do so. But I do not think that we shall find this distinction important in our argument. In the views which we have now to consider it is, as I have said, taken for granted that the three terms which I have now endeavoured to explain express the nature of God.1 Upon that assumption it is certainly easy to show that our ideas of God lead to contradictions. For example, it may be remarked that the idea of First

1 See Mansel's Bampton Lectures, Lect. II.

Cause is inconsistent with that of the Absolute, because cause is a relation. Now if to avoid this objection we adopt the meaning of the word Absolute given first, and say that though God did at first exist as a pure absolute out of relation to anything, yet by an act of his will, what is commonly called creation, he passed into relation to his creatures, then we are met by the objection that an act of will implies consciousness, and consciousness implies a subject and an object. But this notion of God as a subject distinct from something else as an object is inconsistent not only with our ideas of him as Absolute but also as Infinite. For what is this which is not included in him, if he be the Infinite as it was defined a little while ago? And further does not this creation seem to make him different from what he was before, which is contrary to the full idea of the Infinite? Does it not add something to the sum total of things?

Without pursuing such reasonings any further, I would at once challenge their foundation. Can we justify the preliminary assumption ? Have we a right thus to form abstract notions of the Infinite, Absolute, First Cause, and then say that they represent God? What objective foundation have we here, any more than in the à priori or ontological arguments? Is it not safer far to reason from some data of experience, according to rules which have

guided us safely in other investigations? Of course this last process could never reveal, or profess to reveal, what God is in himself. It can only teach us of God in relation to ourselves and our own faculties. But what other knowledge do we want, or indeed what other knowledge are we capable of?

I have now finished my discussion of the subject of this essay, and have but a few more words to say. I would again acknowledge that my arguments do not pretend to prove the infinity of the attributes of God. From the very nature of the case such proof cannot be given, or pretended to be given, unless more stress be laid upon our mental intuitions, or what are taken to be such, than I have ventured to lay. Such proofs lie out of the range of that experimental philosophy which I regard as the rising system of thinking at the present day, and to which I have endeavoured to conform my reasoning. at the same time I have aimed and hoped to show that this philosophy did not disclaim all knowledge of God that even its most advanced forms, which account for our most axiomatic convictions and most imperative moral feelings by habit and inheritance, still leave a stable foundation upon which we may build a belief in a Divine Ruler of the world, one whose perfections, if not proved to be infinite, are still shown to be all that a perfect moral government for ourselves requires. For that end I have assumed

But

only that inductive principle which is at the foundation of all our knowledge, and which the experimental philosophy at all events will not challenge. I have tried to keep clear of all doubtful philosophical questions—to make my arguments equally valid for the materialist, the idealist, or the dualist; for him who holds the atomic or the dynamic theory, or any other theory, of matter; for the disciple of Locke or of Kant, or of the modern physiological philosophy. My principal point has been the combination of the Design and the Moral arguments, and my principal weakness, so far as I myself can judge, will be found in the significance given to the moral faculty. I acknowledge that point to be vital, and I would wish accordingly as I conclude to say one word more in its defence. It is simply this, that the significance upon which I have relied is based upon a mental fact of world-wide experience, the sense of obligation attending the dictates of conscience.

ESSAY II.

THE MIRACULOUS EVIDENCE OF

CHRISTIANITY.

PART 1.

In a former essay I have examined the evidence which we possess as to the existence and attributes of God in the appearance of nature, and in our own moral and intellectual faculties. The question which is now to come before us, if stated in its most general form, would stand thus: Has God made known to us anything concerning himself or our relations to him otherwise than by the evidence just named ? Has he, for example, marked out in any way any human teachers as authorised by him to instruct us on those subjects? This I say would be the general question. But practically a narrower inquiry will suffice. It is the Christian revelation only which we need to consider, and further in this essay I mean to speak only of the evidence from the Gospel miracles, and shall not examine the argument from prophecy,