Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/117

104 CEITICAL NOTICES : That is, the distinguishing feature of phenomenism is its principle of " the relativity of representations " to one another. It pushes this principle to the extent of affirming that, since actually every phenomenon appears under the form of personality, there can be no ultimate philosophical explanation of things otherwise than in terms of personality. A doctrine such as that of Lotze and his disciples, which makes personality ultimate in its explanation of things, and is idealistic as regards the external world, would nevertheless be rejected by a phenomenist because it retains " the substance of mind " ; its monads being miniatures of the indivi- dual mind hypostasised. The doctrine that speaks of " elemen- tary feelings " as things-in-themselves does not, like monadism, assume a substance of mind under the name of " the soul " ; but from the phenomenist point of view it is realistic as the Hegelian doctrine of "thought" is realistic, because it hypostasises the material element in mind as Hegelianism hypostasises the formal element ; and of course it does not place personality at the be- ginning of things. Except on one point, M. Eenouvier concedes that the panthe- istic system, although incapable of demonstration, is theoretically impregnable. The one point where it can be assailed on grounds of pure logic is its assertion of a real infinite of quantity, which follows from " the doctrine of the thing " as opposed to " the doctrine of consciousness". " The actual infinite number" required by the existence of an infinity of distinguishable phenomena in space or time is self-contradictory. The law of contradiction, however, in its application to realities, has been denied by con- sistent partisans of the infinite ; and to assert it as universally true is, like any other proposition of the kind, an act of belief. Even in this case, therefore, it is in the end moral considerations that must determine the choice of the thesis or the antithesis. Erom the point of view of the doctrine of consciousness there can be no question of any actual existence that is other than finite. This truth was expressed by the Pythagoreans in their theory of the limit ; but they in part destroyed its effect by retaining " the un- limited " as a kind of matter upon which form is imposed. The doctrine of the infinite and absolute, as it has asserted itself in Christian theology, is, however, a falling-off from what we may regard as the typical Greek conception of reality as belonging to a limited, ordered universe, and of the unlimited as essentially unreal. The "realised infinite," M. Eenouvier shows, has no place in mathematics. And it is there, if anywhere, that we should expect to find it ; since mathematicians use a terminology that seems to imply infinites of all orders. The notion of a real infinity, however, is not only not employed by mathematicians ; it is no more required for the philosophical explanation of any mathematical or other scientific conception. Everything that can be expressed in terms of consciousness, that is, everything that can be thought as real, is finite. Consciousness itself, per-