would be wailing, deeper than Cassandra's, for the ignorance that saved us from despair."

"1

Hamilton can hardly be said to have developed the argument on this point. Even with regard to the first half of it, there are steps to be supplied. It is virtually said there is mind in man, first in man, above organisation; therefore, there is mind in the universe, first in the universe, above law and organisation. Negatively, it may be allowed that if the converse were true in regard to man, the converse would be true in regard to the universe, or to what transcends experience. But, positively, can we simply by analogy from the fact, supposing it admitted, of mind and the priority of mind in man, infer the corresponding facts in the universe? No doubt we are thus led to think of mind in the universe and its relations of priority. But can we go beyond the conception and at once infer the fact? It seems to me that there are here steps awanting, which may be supplied, but still required. We need a ground of inference from the fact in experience, intelligence here, to the fact above experience, intelligence there. This may be attempted by proof through the beginning of our intelligence in time, its finitude, and the law of cause, and adequate cause. Then, doubtless the law of analogy would help us, for intelligence, if prior here, and independent of material necessity or necessary order, would be properly regarded as so prior there, and so independent, primary, and supreme.

The absence or non-existence of a moral law and order in us, would doubtless sweep away even the possibility 1 Metaphysics, Lect. II.

of such a law, order, and governor in the universe. But how precisely, it may be asked, does Hamilton connect the fact of the existence of these in us with their existence in the universe, or as transcending experience? Is it by analogy simply? Is it meant that, seeing there is moral law, agency in man, there is, therefore, in a sphere transcending experience, the same, or similar, moral law, agency, a moral Governor consequently? To reach this inference we obviously need several links of connection more than the mere fact of the moral order in our conscious experience. Perhaps in the very nature of this order of our experience may lie a necessity for connecting it with a transcendent moral order. But this needs explication and development to complete the argument. The mere fact of the moral order here may be the means and the model of our conceiving the other supreme order and Governor, but the necessity of concluding to it is not given in the mere fact of the conception. The proof is thus but a sketch, and needs supplement and development.

But be this as it may, it is clear that in Hamilton's view we can mediately know a Supreme Cause, intelligent, free, personal, as real at the very least as we are, or any reality in our experience. In fact, he may be regarded as holding the complete implication of such a supreme reality in this finite experience of ours. To regard Hamilton, accordingly, as an agnostic, is entirely to misrepresent the last word of his philosophy. He is an agnostic only in the sense of denying and exploding a ridiculous absolutism.

But a question here arises. We are told that "the Deity is not an object of immediate contemplation; as existing and in Himself, He is beyond our reach; we can know Him only mediately through His works."1 We may ask Is this mediate knowledge a sure and true knowledge? or is it such a knowledge that we cannot be sure of its truth, but may find it some day contradicted as to its essence and substance, if we ever come to know Being in itself?

The answer to this seems to me to be, that this knowledge of a Cause, a Divine Cause, is a true knowledge of what is and has been manifested. It is a manifestation to us and our faculties, to their number, their nature, their laws. We cannot grasp God as He is per se; we cannot even grasp Him completely in all His manifestations. But we know God as He is revealed. The only thing that could contradict this knowledge would be another and different phænomenal revelation. For of what is called His absolute being, His being apart from manifestation, that can never be knowledge to us, and, therefore, can never contradict what we definitely know. But no other manifestation of God can be to us, constituted as we are, different essentially from what there is now. Our faculties have their nature and laws, and we know Him according to these; and if these be contradicted by any subsequent alleged manifestation in the future, our very power of knowing is subverted, and we have chaos, not knowledge. Our knowledge of God as Cause, intelligent, omnipotent, free, moral, may indeed be sublimated; present

1 Metaphysics, Lect. II.

conceptions may pass into higher of the same order. That would be our gain, not our loss; but that is all the change possible.

But at the best we must emphasise the partialness of even this relative knowledge. The world we know and through which we know God is not necessarily His one, His single, His whole manifestation. A God necessitated to develop Himself is no God; He is not even man, for man, in his true being, is free. An absolute or infinite cause, so called, under a necessity of manifestation, is no absolute or infinite reality at all. One line of development is all we could have under such a condition-one, and one only; the only possible, the best, the poor best we have. It is restricted to this; it can do nothing more. This is a purely helpless absolute. And if this be Deity, and yet under the necessity of manifestation, or passing into another forin of being, who can tell that He survives?

But the manifestation of a Divine Cause is different from the manifestation of a verbal Absolute. This is limited by the notionalism from which it springs; the true God stands at the head of experience. As such He must be adequate to the highest thing in experience. And what is this? Not a necessity of manifestation, not a mechanical necessity, even with consciousness, but the full scope of a free power, analogous to our own, at its highest development; when we create by willing or notwilling; when we can accept the rational motive; when we can consent to self-sacrifice, to greatness of emotion, to devotion to the right, the holy, and the pure. free consciousness above necessitation, above a single

A

necessary determinate development, above all that we can see, or feel, or know about this world of ours, with all its grandeur and all its compass, manifesting itself, yet not complete or exhausted in the manifestation, this is for us the highest type, the true analogue of a God. Such a Deity is neither unknowable nor unknown.