or simple condition of real
being, but it is not in itself a principle of being, so that "the One"
could exist substantially by itself. To personify the barest of
abstractions, call it God, and then try to imitate it, would seem too
absurd a fallacy to have misled any one, if history did not show that
it has had a long and vigorous life.]

[Footnote 174: Cf. Sir W. Hamilton (_Discussions_, p. 21): "By
abstraction we annihilate the object, and by abstraction we annihilate
the subject of consciousness. But what remains? Nothing. When we
attempt to conceive it as reality, we hypostatise the zero."]

[Footnote 175: The Hon. P. Ramanathan, C.M.G., Attorney-General of
Ceylon, _The Mystery of Godliness_. This interesting essay was brought
to my notice by the kindness of the Rev. G.U. Pope, D.D., University
Teacher in Tamil and Telugu at Oxford.]

[Footnote 176: Hunt's summary of the philosophy of the Vedanta Sara
(_Pantheism and Christianity_, p. 19) may help to illustrate further
this type of thought. "Brahma is called the universal soul, of which
all human souls are a part. These are likened to a succession of
sheaths, which envelop each other like the coats of an onion. The
human soul frees itself by knowledge from the sheath. But what is this
knowledge? To know that the human intellect and all its faculties are
ignorance and delusion. This is to take away the sheath, and to find
that God is all. Whatever is not Brahma is nothing. So long as a man
perceives himself to be anything, he is nothing. When he discovers
that his supposed individuality is no individuality, then he has
knowledge. Man must strive to rid himself of himself as an object of
thought. He must be only a subject. As subject he is Brahma, while the
objective world is mere phenomenon."]

[Footnote 177: We may compare with them the following maxims, which,
enclosed in an outline of Mount Carmel, form the frontispiece to an
early edition of St. Juan of the Cross:--

"To enjoy Infinity, do not desire to taste of finite things.

"To arrive at the knowledge of Infinity, do not desire the knowledge
of finite things.

"To reach to the possession of Infinity, desire to possess nothing.

"To be included in the being of Infinity, desire to be thyself nothing
whatever.

"The moment that thou art resting in a creature, thou art ceasing to
advance towards Infinity.

"In order to unite thyself to Infinity, thou must surrender finite
things without reserve."