e argues earnestly against
his assertion that the Absolute is a "mere negation of thought."

"Every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is
demonstrated distinctly postulates the _positive existence_ of something
beyond the relative. To say we can not know the Absolute is, by
implication, to affirm there _is_ an Absolute. In the very denial of our
power to learn _what_ the Absolute is, there lies hidden the assumption
_that_ it is; and the making of this assumption proves that the Absolute
has been present to the mind, not as nothing, but as _something_. And so
with every step in the reasoning by which the doctrine is upheld, the
Noumenon, everywhere named as the antithesis of the Phenomenon, is
throughout thought as actuality. It is rigorously impossible to conceive
that our knowledge is a knowledge of appearances only, without, at the
same time, conceiving a Reality of which these are appearances, for
appearances without reality are unthinkable.

"Truly to represent or realize in thought any one of the propositions of
which the argument consists, the unconditioned must be represented as
_positive_, and not negative. How, then, can it be a legitimate
conclusion from the argument that our consciousness of it is negative?
An argument, the very construction of which assigns to a certain term a
certain meaning, but which ends in showing that this term has no
meaning, is simply an elaborate suicide. Clearly, then, the very
demonstration that a definite consciousness [comprehension] of the
Absolute is impossible, unavoidably presupposes an indefinite
consciousness of it [an apprehension]."--"First Principles," p. 88.]

Still we have the word _infinite_, and we have _the notion_ which the
word expresses. This, at least, is spared to us by Sir William Hamilton.
He who says we have no such notion asks the question _how we have it?_
Here it may be asked, how have we, then, the word infinite? How have we
the notion which this word expresses? The answer to this question is
contained in the distinction of positive and negative thought.

We have a positive concept of a thing when we think of it by the
qualities of which it is the complement. But as the attribution of
qualities is an affirmation, as affirmation and negation are relatives,
and as relatives _are known only in and through each other_, we can not,
therefore, have a _consciousness_ of the affirmation of any quality
without having, at the same t