[35] The qualities named are only known in a relative sense, and therefore the apparent contradiction may be destitute of meaning in an absolute sense.
[36] All the quotations in this Appendix have been taken from the chapter on "Our knowledge of the existence of a God," and from the early part of that on "The extent of human knowledge," together with the appended letter to the Bishop of Worcester.
[37] A criticism of Mr. John Fiske's proposed system of theology as expounded in his work on "Cosmic Philosophy" (Macmillan & Co., 1874).
[38] Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 87-89.
[39] Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 429, 430.
[40] Ibid., p. 441.
[41] Ibid., pp. 450, 451.
[42] Principles of Psychology, vol. i. pp. 159-161.
[43] We thus see that the question whether there may not be "something quasi-psychical in the constitution of things" is a question which does not affect the position of Theism as it has been left by a negation of the self-conscious personality of God. But as the speculations on which this question has been reared are in themselves of much philosophical interest, I may here observe that, in one form or another, they have been dimly floating in men's minds for a long time past. Thus, excepting the degree of certainty with which it is taught, we have in Mr. Spencer's words above quoted a reversion to the doctrine of Buddha; for, as "force is persistent," all that would happen on death, supposing the doctrine true, would be an escape of the "circumscribed aggregate" of units forming the individual consciousness into the unlimited abyss of similar units constituting the "Absolute Being" of the Cosmists, or the "Divine Essence" of the Buddhists. Again, the doctrine in a vague form pervades the philosophy of Spinoza, and is next clearly enunciated by Wundt. Lastly, in a recently published very remarkable essay "On the Nature of Things in Themselves," Professor Clifford arrives at a similar doctrine by a different route. The following is the conclusion to which he arrives:—"That element of which, as we have seen, even the simplest feeling is a complex, I shall call Mind-stuff. A moving molecule of inorganic matter does not possess mind or consciousness, but it possesses a small piece of mind-stuff. When molecules are so combined together as to form the film on the under side of a jellyfish, the elements of mind-stuff which go along with them are so combined as to form the faint beginnings of Sentience. When the molecules are so combined as to form the brain and nervous system of a vertebrate, the corresponding elements of mind-stuff are so combined as to form some kind of consciousness; that is to say, changes in the complex which take place at the same time get so linked together that the repetition of one implies the repetition of the other. When matters take the complex form of a living human brain, the corresponding mind-stuff takes the form of a human consciousness, having intelligence and volition." (Mind, January, 1878.)
[44] Theism, by Robert Flint, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh, &c.