lained, would be to suppose, that
there is something still more ultimate into which, if known, this
Inexplicable could be merged. Hence, unless we postulate an infinite
series of possible explanations, there must be a basal mystery
somewhere, which, in virtue of its constituting the ground of all
possible explanations, cannot be, and does not require to be, itself
explained. What is this basal mystery? Materialism supposes it to be
lodged in Matter to the exclusion of Mind, while Idealism in its extreme
forms takes the converse view. Theism supposes that it is an intelligent
Person, who is held--and logically enough--not to be able to give any
explanation of his own existence; he is, as it is said, self-existent,
and, if asked to give any account of his being, would only be able to
restate the fact of his being in the words, 'I am that I am.' Lastly,
Pantheism, or Monism, supposes the ultimate mystery to be lodged in the
universe as a whole. Now, in the present connexion the question before
us is simply this--Are we to regard the principle of causality or the
principle of mind as the ultimate mystery? And to this question I answer
that to me it appears most reasonable to assign priority to mind. For,
on the one hand, our only knowledge of causation is empirical, while
even as such it is only possible in the same way as our knowledge of
objective existence in general is possible--namely, by way of inference
from our own mental modifications, which therefore must necessarily have
priority so far as we are ourselves concerned. Next, on the other hand,
even if we were to grant that the principle of causality is the prius,
or the ultimate and inexplicable mystery, I cannot see that it is really
available to explain the fact of personality. To me it appears that,
within the range of human observation, this is the fact that most wears
the appearance of finality, or of that unanalyzable and inexplicable
nature which we are bound to believe must belong to the ultimate mystery
of Being. But, be this as it may, the speculative difficulty of
assigning priority to mind is certainly no greater than that of
assigning it to causality; and this, as above remarked, is a sufficient
answer to the question before us. According to Monism, however, there is
no need to assign priority to either principle, seeing that one is but a
phenomenal expression of the other.

Only one further question remains to be considered. From what I have
just said