Collected Works (Vol. II)

234 mveid joss of Genesis to the intangible, but self- contradictory spectre of to-day. But if G be infinite, the other forces can have no possible effect on it. As Whewell says, in the strange accident by which he anticipates the metre of x Memoriam: ‘‘ No force on earth, however great, can stretch a cord, however fine, into a horizontal line that shall be absolutely straight.” The definition of God as infinite therefore denies man implicitly; while if he be finite, there is an end of the usual Christian reasons for worship, though I daresay I could myself discover some reasonably good ones. [I hardly expect to be asked, somehow.] The resulting equilibrium of God and man, destructive of worship, is of course absurd. We must reject it, unless we want to fall into Positivism, Materialism, or something of the sort. But if, then, we call God infinite, how are we to regard man, and Satan? (the latter, at the very least, surely no integral part of him). The fallacy lies not in my demonstration (which is also that of ortho- doxy) that a finite God is absurd, but in the assumption that man has any real force.} In our mechanical system (as I have hinted above), if one of the forces be infinite, the others, however great, are both relatively and absolutely nothing. In any category, infinity excludes finity, unless that finity be an identical part of that infinity. In the category of existing things, space being infinite, for on that hypothesis we are still working, either matter fills or does not fill it. If the former, matter is infinitely great; if the latter, infinitely small. Whether the matter-universe be 10! light-years in diameter or half a mile makes no difference; it is infinitely small—in effect, Nothing. The unmathematical illusion that it does exist is what the Hindus call Maya. If, on the other hand, the matter-universe is infinite, Brahm and God are crowded out, and the possibility of religion is equally excluded. 1 Lully, Descartes, Spinoza, Schelling. See their works. We may now shift our objective. The Hindus cannot account intelligibly, though they try hard, for Maya, the cause of all suffering. Their position is radically weak, but at least we may say for them that they have tried to square their religion with their common sense. The Christians, on the other hand, though they saw whither the Manichean Heresy! must lead, and crushed it, have not officially admitted the precisely similar con- clusion with regard to man, and denied the existence of the human soul as distinct from the divine soul. Trismegistus, Iamblicus, Porphyry, Boehme, and the mystics generally have of course substantially done so, though occa- sionally with rather inexplicable reservations, similar to those made in some cases by the Vedantists themselves. Man then being disproved, God the Person disappears for ever, and becomes Atman, Pleroma, Ain Soph, what name you will, infinite in all directions and in all categories —to deny one is to destroy the entire argu- ment and throw us back on to our old Dvaitistic bases. I entirely sympathise with my unhappy friend Rev. Mansel, B.D,,? in his piteous and pitiful plaints against the logical results of the Advaitist School. But on his basal hypothesis of an infinite God, infinite. space, time, and so on, no other conclusion is possible. Dean Mansel is found in the im- possible position of one who will neither give up his premisses nor dispute the validity of his logical processes, but who shrinks in horror from the inevitable conclusion; he supposes there must be something wrong somewhere, and concludes that the sole use of reason is to discover its. own inferiority to faith. As Deussen? well points out, faith in the Christian sense merely amounts to 1 The conception of Satan asa positive evil force; the lower triangle of the Hexagram. 2 Encyclopedia Britannica, Art. Meta- physics. ; 3 ‘The Principles of Metaphysics.” Mac- millan.