ted itself after a manner incomparably
more mysterious and stupendous. The mathematician alone will
comprehend the full significance of the paragraph dealing with the
Geometry of Position and the mystery of space-relations,--or the
startling declaration that "even could we penetrate the mysteries of
existence, there would remain still more transcendent mysteries."
But Herbert Spencer tells us that, apart from the conception of these
geometrical mysteries, the problem of naked Space itself became for
him, in the twilight of his age, an obsession and a dismay:--

... "And then comes the thought of this universal matrix
itself, anteceding alike creation or evolution, whichever be
assumed, and infinitely transcending both, alike in extent and
duration; since both, if conceived at all, must be conceived
as having had beginnings, while Space had no beginning. The
thought of this blank form of existence which, explored in
all directions as far as imagination can reach, has, beyond
that, an unexplored region compared with which the part which
imagination has traversed is but infinitesimal,--the thought
of a Space compared with which our immeasurable sidereal
system dwindles to a point is a thought too overwhelming to
be dwelt upon. Of late years the consciousness that without
origin or cause infinite Space has ever existed and must ever
exist, produces in me a feeling from which I shrink."

* * * * *

How the idea of infinite Space may affect a mind incomparably more
powerful than my own, I cannot know;--neither can I divine the nature
of certain problems which the laws of space-relation present to the
geometrician. But when I try to determine the cause of the horror
which that idea evokes within my own feeble imagination, I am able
to distinguish different elements of the emotion,--particular forms
of terror responding to particular ideas (rational and irrational)
suggested by the revelations of science. One feeling--perhaps the
main element of the horror--is made by the thought of being _prisoned_
forever and ever within that unutterable Viewlessness which occupies
infinite Space.

Behind this feeling there is more than the thought of eternal
circumscription;--there is also the idea of being perpetually
penetrated, traversed, thrilled by the Nameless;--there is likewise
the certainty that no least particle of innermost secret Self coul