ly determined,
having the principle of its activity within itself, while the origin of
the activity, the act itself, and the result, are one, and constitute
the concrete. The innate contradiction of the concrete is the basis of
its development, and though differences arise, they at last vanish into
unity. To use the words of Hegel, there is 'both the movement and repose
in the movement. The difference hardly appears before it disappears,
whereupon there issues from it a full and complete unity.'"

"That is very clear and satisfactory," observed Mr. Stanley, ironically;
not seeing anything but confusion confounded in the whole of it. "What
is your view," he asked again, "of the Hegelian 'Absolute'?"

"This," said the Professor, "is nothing but a continual process of
thinking, without beginning and without end. Now that the evolution of
ideas in the human mind is the process of all existence--the essence of
the Absolute--of a Deity, so that Deity is nothing more than the
Absolute ever striving to realize itself in human consciousness."

Without questioning the truthfulness of such a doctrine, so _plainly
expressed_, Mr. Stanley proceeded to ask, in a way rather beyond
himself, "Whether there was not a little to be said for Schelling's
notion that the rhythmical law of all existence is cognisable at the
same time by the internal consciousness of the subjective self, in the
objective operation of Nature?"

To this question, somewhat mystical it must be confessed, the Professor
replied in his usual style of profundity:--

"I see clearly enough Schelling's great ingenuity; but think his three
movements or potencies--that of 'Reflexion,' whereby the Infinite
strives to realize itself in the Finite--that of 'Subsumption,' which is
the striving of the Absolute to return from the Finite to the
Infinite--and that of the 'Indifference-point,' or point of junction of
the two first--were not to be admitted; for is it not clear as the day
that the poles ever persist in remaining apart, the indifference-point
having never been fixed by Schelling?"

In these ways Mr. Stanley and the Professor kept up the conversation
until I and the rest of the company were perfectly involved in dense
mists and fogs, wishing that the sun of simple truth would shine, to
bring us into clear seeing and firm foot-standing. We longed for the day
without a cloud. At last they ceased, and after a brief interval we
found ourselves where we were before the