Harrison represents. For whereas, in common with his teacher Sir William Hamilton, Dean Mansel alleged that our consciousness of the Absolute is merely "a negation of conceivability;" I have, over a space of ten pages,[1] contended that our consciousness of the Absolute is not negative but positive, and is the one indestructible element of consciousness "which persists at all times, under all circumstances, and can not cease until consciousness ceases"—have argued that while the Power which transcends phenomena can not be brought within the forms of our finite thought, yet that, as being a necessary datum of every thought, belief in its existence has, among our beliefs, the highest validity of any; is not, as Sir W. Hamilton alleges, a belief with which we are supernaturally "inspired," but is a normal deliverance of consciousness. Thus, as represented by Mr. Harrison, Dean Mansel's views and my own are exactly transposed. Misrepresentation could not, I think, go further.
The conception I have everywhere expressed and implied, of the relation between human life and the Ultimate Cause, if not diametrically opposed with like distinctness to the conception Mr. Harrison ascribes to me, is yet thus opposed in an unmistakable way. After suggesting that (xn) would be an appropriate symbol "for the religion of the Infinite Unknowable," and amusing himself and his readers by imaginary prayers made to (xn); after making a subsequent elaboration of his jeu d'esprit by suggesting that (nx) would serve for the formula of certain modern Theisms, he says of these:—
The Neo-Theisms have all the same mortal weakness that the Unknowable has. They offer no kinship, sympathy, or relation whatever between worshiper and worshiped. They, too, are logical formulas begotten in controversy, dwelling apart from man and the world.
Now, considering that in the article he has before him there is in various ways implied the view that "the power which manifests itself in consciousness is but a differently conditioned form of the power which manifests itself beyond consciousness"—considering that here and everywhere throughout my books the implication is that our lives, alike physical and mental, in common with all the activities, organic and inorganic, amid which we live, are but the workings of this Power, it is not a little astonishing to find it described as simply a "logical formula begotten in controversy." Does Mr. Harrison really think that he represents the facts when he describes as "dwelling apart from man and the world," that Power of which man and the world are regarded products, and which is manifested through man and the world from instant to instant?
Did I not need the space for other topics, I might at much greater length contrast Mr. Harrison's erroneous versions with the true ones. I might enlarge on the fact that, though the name Agnosticism fitly
- ↑ "First Principles," § 26.
