ust be determined; only pure Nothing can be
undetermined. _Determination_ is, however, one thing; and _limitation_
is essentially another thing. "Even space and time, though cognized
solely by negative characteristics, are determined in so far as
differentiated from the existences they contain; but this
differentiation involves no limitation of their infinity." If all
distinction is determination, and if all determination is negation, that
is (as here used), limitation, then the infinite, as distinguished from
the finite, loses its own infinity, and either becomes identical with
the finite, or else vanishes into pure nothing. If Hamilton will persist
in affirming that all determination is limitation, he has no other
alternatives but to accept the doctrine of Absolute Nihilism, or of
Absolute Identity. If the Absolute is the indeterminate--that is, no
attributes, no consciousness, no relations--it is pure non-being. If the
Infinite is "the One and All," then there is but one substance, one
absolute entity.

Herbert Spencer professes to be carrying out, a step farther, the
doctrine put into shape by Hamilton and Mansel, viz., "the philosophy of
the Unconditioned." In other words, he carries that doctrine forward to
its rigidly logical consequences, and utters the last word which
Hamilton and Mansel dare not utter--"Apprehensible by us there is no
God." The Ultimate Reality is absolutely unknown; it can not be
apprehended by the human intellect, and it can not present itself to the
intellect at all. This Ultimate Reality can not be _intelligent_,
because to think is to condition, and the Absolute is the unconditioned;
can not be _conscious_, because all consciousness is of plurality and
difference, and the Absolute is one; can not be _personal_, because
personality is determination or limitation, and the Infinite is the
illimitable. It is "audacious," "irreverent," "impious," to apply any of
these predicates to it; to regard it as Mind, or speak of it as
Righteous.[327] The ultimate goal of the philosophy of the Unconditioned
is a purely subjective Atheism.

[Footnote 327: "First Principles," pp. 111, 112.]

And yet of this Primary Existence--inscrutable, and absolutely
unknown--Spencer knows something; knows as much as he pleases to know.
He knows that this "ultimate of ultimates is _Force_,"[328] an
"_Omnipresent Power_,"[329] is "_One_" and "_Eternal_."[330] He knows
also that it can not be intelligent, self-consciou