chstone which
is to separate the "Knowable" from the "Unknowable." Corresponding to
small objects, a piece of rock for example, where the sides, top, and
bottom can be considered as practically all present in consciousness at
once, and large ones, like the earth, where they cannot, our author
divides conceptions into complete and symbolic. Great magnitudes and
classes of objects also produce symbolic conceptions which, while
indispensable to reasoning, often lead us into error. "We habitually
mistake our symbolic conceptions for real ones." The former "are
legitimate, provided that by some cumulative or indirect process of
thought, or by the fulfilment of predictions based upon them, we can
assure ourselves that they stand for actualities," otherwise "they are
altogether vicious and illusive" and "illegitimate" and here belong
religious ideas.

The foregoing is applied by Mr. Spencer in his argument relative to the
origin of the Universe respecting which, he asserts that "three verbally
intelligible suppositions may be made": (1) that it is self-existent,
(2) that it was self-created, (3) that it was created by an external
agency. "Which of these suppositions is most credible it is not needful
here to enquire. The deeper question, into which this finally merges,
is, whether any one of these is even conceivable in the true sense of
the word." He shows that, since the mind refuses to accept the
transformation of absolute vacuity into the existent, the theory of
self-creation forces us back to a potential Universe whose self-creation
was transition to an actual Universe, and that then, we must explain the
existence of the potential Universe and that, similarly, creation by an
external agency demands that we account for the genesis of the Creator,
so that both of these theories involve the self-existence of a
something. Therefore, I shall analyze his presentation of the first
theory only. "Self-existence necessarily means existence without a
beginning; and to form a conception of self-existence is to form a
conception of existence without a beginning. Now by no mental effort can
we do this. To conceive existence through infinite past-time, implies
the conception of infinite past-time, which is an impossibility. To this
let us add, that even were self-existence conceivable, it would not in
any sense be an explanation of the Universe.... It is not a question of
probability, or credibility, but of conceivability."

In making