an infinite being [this phrase, in the absence of
hypothesis, _i.e._, in Locke's other train of reasoning, is of course
equivalent to the sum-total of possibility] because we cannot comprehend
its operations. We do not deny other effects upon this ground, because we
cannot possibly conceive the manner of their production. We cannot conceive
how anything but impulse of body can move body; and yet that is not a
reason sufficient to make us deny it possible, against the constant
experience we have of it in ourselves, in all our voluntary motions, which
are produced in us only by the free action or thought of our minds, and are
not, nor can be, the effects of the impulse or determination of the blind
matter in or upon our own bodies; for then it could not be in our power or
choice to alter it. For example, my right hand writes, whilst my left hand
is still: what causes rest in one and motion in the other? Nothing but my
will, a thought in my mind; my thought only changing, the right hand rests,
and the left hands moves. This is matter of fact, which cannot be denied:
explain this and make it intelligible, and then the next step will be to
understand creation."[36]

* * * * *

SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS.

* * * * *

I.

COSMIC THEISM.[37]

Mr. Herbert Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable is a doctrine of so much
speculative importance, that it behoves all students of philosophy to have
clear views respecting its character and implications. Mr. Spencer has
himself so fully explained the character of this doctrine, that no
attentive reader can fail to understand it; but concerning those of its
implications which may be termed theological--as distinguished from
religious--Mr. Spencer is silent. Within the last two or three years,
however, there has appeared a valuable work by an able exponent of the new
philosophy; and in this work the writer, adopting his master's teaching of
the Unknowable, proceeds to develop it into a definite system of what may
be termed scientific theology. And not only so, but he assures the world
that this system of scientific theology is the highest, the purest, and the
most ennobling form of religion that mankind has ever been privileged to
know in the past, or, from the nature of the case, can ever be destined to
know in the future. It is a system, we are told, wherein the most
fundamental truths of Theism are taught as necessary deducti