ond
nature. In the former case the minor premise of the Theistic syllogism
is utterly invalidated; in the latter case it is abundantly sustained.

Some Theistic writers--as Descartes, Pascal, Leibnitz, and Saisset--have
made the fatal admission that the universe is, in some sense, _infinite_
and _eternal_. In making this admission they have unwittingly
surrendered the citadel of strength, and deprived the argument by which
they would prove the being of a God of all its logical force. That
argument is thus presented by Saisset: "The finite supposes the
infinite. Extension supposes first space, then immensity: duration
supposes first time, then eternity. A sudden and irresistible judgment
refers this to the necessary, infinite, perfect being."[215] But if "the
world is infinite and eternal,"[216] may not nature, or the totality of
all existence (to pan), be the necessary, infinite, and perfect Being?
An infinite and eternal universe has the reason of its existence in
itself, and the existence of such a universe can never prove to us the
existence of an infinite and eternal God.

[Footnote 215: "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. p. 205.]

[Footnote 216: Ibid, p. 123.]

A closer examination of the statements and reasonings of Descartes,
Pascal, and Leibnitz, as furnished by Saisset, will show that these
distinguished mathematicans were misled by the false notion of
"_mathematical_ infinitude." Their infinite universe, after all, is not
an "absolute," but a "relative" infinite; that is, the indefinite. "The
universe must extend _indefinitely_ in time and space, in the infinite
greatness, and in the infinite littleness of its parts--in the infinite
variety of its species, of its forms, and of its degrees of existence.
The finite can not express the infinite but by being _multiplied_
infinitely. The finite, so far as it is finite, is not in any reasonable
relation, or in any intelligible proportion to the infinite. But the
finite, as _multiplied_ infinitely,[217] ages upon ages, spaces upon
spaces, stars beyond stars, worlds beyond worlds, is a true expression
of the Infinite Being. Does it follow, because the universe has no
limits,--that it must therefore be eternal, immense, infinite as God
himself? No; that is but a vain scruple, which springs from the
imagination, and not from the reason. The imagination is always
confounding what reason should ever distinguish, eternity and time,
immensity and space, _relative_ infinity an