all phenomena are modes of my mind, and that the substance
of my mind is the only real existence. It is possible to adopt a system
of Materialism, and to maintain that all phenomena are modes of matter,
and that the material substance of the world is the only real existence.
Or it is possible to adopt a system of Pantheism, and to maintain that
all phenomena are modes of the Divine existence, and that God is the only
reality. But the several notions are in themselves distinct, though one
may ultimately be predicated of another.

The general notion of the Unconditioned is the same in all these cases,
and all must finally culminate in the last, the Unconditioned _par
excellence_. The general notion is that of the One as distinguished from
the Many, the substance from its accidents, the permanent reality from
its variable modifications. Thought, will, sensation, are modes of my
existence. What is the _I_ that is one and the same in all? Extension,
figure, resistance, are attributes of matter. What is the one substance
to which these attributes belong? But the generalisation cannot stop
here. If matter differs from mind, the _non-ego_ from the _ego_, as one
thing from another, there must be some special point of difference,
which, is the condition of the existence of each in this or that
particular manner. Unconditioned existence, therefore, in the highest
sense of the term, cannot be the existence of _this_ as distinguished
from _that_; it must be existence _per se_, the ground and principle of
all conditioned or special existence. This is the Unconditioned, properly
so called: the unconditioned in Schelling's sense, as the indifference of
subject and object: and it is against this that Hamilton's arguments are
directed.

The question is this. Is this Unconditioned a mere abstraction, the
product of our own minds; or can it be conceived as having a real
existence _per se_, and, as such, can it be identified with God as the
source of all existence? Hamilton maintains that it is a mere
abstraction, and cannot be so identified; that, far from being "a name of
God," it is a name of nothing at all. "By abstraction," he says, "we
annihilate the object, and by abstraction we annihilate the subject of
consciousness. But what remains? _Nothing._" When we attempt to conceive
it as a reality, we "hypostatise the zero."[AM]

[AM] _Discussions_, p. 21.

In order to conceive the Unconditioned existing as a thing, we must
conceive