tes
may be ascribed, but as a vague, indeterminate _somewhat_, which has no
distinctive character, and of which, in the first instance, or prior to
its development, almost nothing can be either affirmed or denied. But
this absolute existence, by some unknown, inherent necessity, develops,
determines, and limits itself: it becomes being, and constitutes all
being: the infinite passes into the finite, the absolute into the
relative, the necessary into the contingent, the one into the many; all
other existences are only so many modes or forms of its manifestation.
Here is a theory which, to say the very least, is neither more
intelligible, nor less mysterious, than any article of the Christian
faith. And what are the proofs to which it appeals, what the principles
on which it rests? Its two fundamental positions are these; that finite
things have no distinct existence as realities in nature, and that there
exists only one Absolute Being, manifesting itself in a variety of
forms. And how are they demonstrated? Simply by the affirmation of
universal "Identity." But what if this affirmation be denied? What if,
founding on the clearest data of consciousness, we refuse to acknowledge
that _existence_ is identical with _thought_?[141] What if we continue
to believe that there are objects of thought which are distinct from
thought itself, and which must be _presented_ to the mind before they
can be _represented_ by the mind? What if, while we recognize the idea
both of the finite and the infinite, the relative and the absolute, the
contingent and the necessary, we cannot, by the utmost effort of our
reason, obliterate the difference between them, so as to reduce them to
one absolute essence? Then the whole superstructure of Pantheism falls
along with the Idealism on which it depends; and it is found to be, not
a solid and enduring system of truth, but a frail edifice, ingeniously
constructed out of the mere abstractions of the human mind.

The advocates of this system assume that the relations which subsist
between _beings_ are the same as the relations which subsist between our
_ideas_, and infer that _logic_ is sufficient to construct a system of
_metaphysic_. But Professor Nicolas has well said, that "while it is
certain we cannot know things but by the notions which we have of them,
and a certain parallelism may thus be established between _what exists_
and _what we think_ of that which exists, yet from this to the
_identity