Whether, with the materialistic pantheists of old, we call the infinite a common principle or seed of liquid nature, from which everything sprang up, and which is the substratum of everything; or whether we call it the primitive number, with the Pythagoreans; or we like to exhibit it as the first unity or monas, with Plotinus and the Neoplatonists; or we look upon it as the infinite substance of Spinoza; or finally, with the Germans, we prefer to call it the ego or the absolute identity, or the ideal-being; or the impersonal reason, with Cousin—all converge into this idea, that the infinite is something indeterminate, unconscious, impersonal; which, by an interior necessity, is impelled to unfold and develop itself, assuming all kinds of limitations and forms; and thus, from being undefined, indeterminate, abstract, it becomes real, defined, determinate, concrete; from being one, it becomes multiple. The genesis of creation in all its components, and the history of mankind, are the successive unfolding and realization of the infinite in a progressive scale. For, in its necessary development, it becomes matter, organism, sense; and in man it acquires intellect with the consciousness of itself. Here commence all the phases of the development of man recorded in history: phases of a progressive civilization, which are but necessary unfoldings and modifications of the infinite; and which will go on progressing perpetually, to what end, or for how long, pantheists and progressists are unable to determine.
By means of this theory of the infinite, they endeavor to reconcile reality with the ontological ideas of being, the infinite, substance, and the absolute. For they reason thus: The idea of being is essentially universal, and as such it must embrace all reality, and therefore it can be but one. The same must be said of the idea of the infinite. This comprehends everything, and therefore absorbs everything.
The reader can easily see, from what we have thus far said, that the first problem which pantheism raises and which is to be solved, is the following: What is the nature of the infinite? We accept the problem, and shall discuss it by making the following inquiries.
1. Does the idea which pantheism gives of the infinite really resolve the problem?
2. What is the true solution of the problem?
With regard to the first inquiry we answer that the idea of the infinite, as given by the pantheists, when well examined, leads to one of two different conclusions:
1. Either it is the idea of finite being, and consequently requiring the existence of an infinite being as its origin.
2. Or, it is the idea of a mere abstraction, an absolute nonentity, and hence leading to absolute nihilism. In both cases pantheism, instead of resolving the problem, destroys it. We shall endeavor to prove both these propositions, assuming as granted that the principles of pantheism are these two:
1. The infinite is that the essence of which lies in becoming.