and elaborated by his disciple, there might be found some rational
justification for an attenuated form of Theism. But on examination I find
that the bread which these fathers have offered us turns out to be a stone;
and thinking that it is desirable to warn other of the children--whether of
the family Philosophical or Theological--against swallowing on trust a
morsel so injurious, I shall endeavour to point out what I conceive to be
the true nature of "Cosmic Theism."

Starting from the doctrine of the Relativity of Knowledge, Mr. Fiske,
following Mr. Spencer, proceeds to show how the doctrine implies that there
must be a mode of Being to which human knowledge is non-relative. Or, in
other words, he shows that the postulation of phenomena necessitates the
further postulation of noumena of which phenomena are the manifestations.
Now what may we affirm of noumena without departing from a scientific or
objective mode of philosophising? We may affirm at least this much of
noumena, that they constitute a mode of existence which need not
necessarily vanish were our consciousness to perish; and, therefore, that
they now stand out of necessary relation to our consciousness. Or, in other
words, so far as human consciousness is concerned, noumena must be regarded
as absolute. "But now, what do we mean by this affirmation of absolute
reality independent of the conditions of the process of knowing? Do we mean
to ... affirm, in language savouring strongly of scholasticism, that
beneath the phenomena which we call subjective there is an occult
substratum Mind, and beneath the phenomena which we call objective there is
an occult substratum Matter? Our conclusion cannot be stated in any such
form.... Our conclusion is simply this, that no theory of phenomena,
external or internal, can be framed without postulating an Absolute
Existence of which phenomena are the manifestations. And now let us
carefully note what follows. We cannot identify this Absolute Existence
with Mind, since what we know as Mind is a series of phenomenal
manifestations.... Nor can we identify this Absolute Existence with Matter,
since what we know as Matter is a series of phenomenal manifestations....
Absolute Existence, therefore,--the Reality which persists independently of
us, and of which Mind and Matter are the phenomenal manifestations,--cannot
be identified either with Mind or with Matter. Thus is Materialism included
in the same condemnation with Idealism..