ontrary, arises only from the
subjective conditions of our own consciousness; there is nothing to
indicate that, in objective reality, units of Force are in any wise akin to
units of Feeling. Conceivability, therefore, as a test of truth, is in this
particular case of no assignable degree of value; for as the entities to
which it is applied are respectively the highest known abstractions of
subjective and objective existence, the test of conceivability is
neutralised by directly encountering the inconceivable relation that
subsists between subject and object. I think, therefore, it is evident that
these ontological speculations present no sufficient warrant for an
inference, even of the slenderest kind, that the Absolute Being of Cosmism
possesses attributes of a nature quasi-psychical; and, if so, it follows
that these speculations are incompetent to form the basis of a theory
which, even by the greatest stretch of courtesy, can in any legitimate
sense be termed quasi-theistic.[43]

On the whole, then, I conclude that the term "Cosmic Theism" is not an
appropriate term whereby to denote the theory of things set forth in
"Cosmic Philosophy;" and that it would therefore be more judicious to leave
the doctrine of the Unknowable as Mr. Spencer has left it--that is, without
theological implications of any kind. But in now taking leave of this
subject, I should like it to be understood that the only reason why I have
ventured thus to take exception to a part of Mr. Fiske's work is because I
regret that a treatise which displays so much of literary excellence and
philosophic power should lend itself to promoting what I regard as mistaken
views concerning the ontological tendencies of recent thought, and this
with no other apparent motive than that of unworthily retaining in the new
philosophy a religious term the distinctive connotations of which are
considered by that philosophy to have become obsolete.

* * * * *

II.

SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY IN REPLY TO A RECENT WORK ON THEISM.[44]

On perusing my main essay several years after its completion, it occurred
to me that another very effectual way of demonstrating the immense
difference between the nature of all previous attacks upon the teleological
argument and the nature of the present attack, would be briefly to review
the reasonable objections to which all the previous attacks were open. Very
opportunely a work on Theism has just been publi