ether by a
series of identities of a synthetic kind, binds everything conceivable
into a unity, with no outlying notion to disturb the free rotary
circulation of the mind within its bounds. Since such unchecked
movement gives the feeling of rationality, he must be held, if he has
succeeded, to have eternally and absolutely quenched all rational
demands.

But for those who deem Hegel's heroic effort to {73} have failed,
nought remains but to confess that when all things have been unified to
the supreme degree, the notion of a possible other than the actual may
still haunt our imagination and prey upon our system. The bottom of
being is left logically opaque to us, as something which we simply come
upon and find, and about which (if we wish to act) we should pause and
wonder as little as possible. The philosopher's logical tranquillity
is thus in essence no other than the boor's. They differ only as to
the point at which each refuses to let further considerations upset the
absoluteness of the data he assumes. The boor does so immediately, and
is liable at any moment to the ravages of many kinds of doubt. The
philosopher does not do so till unity has been reached, and is
warranted against the inroads of those considerations, but only
practically, not essentially, secure from the blighting breath of the
ultimate Why? If he cannot exorcise this question, he must ignore or
blink it, and, assuming the data of his system as something given, and
the gift as ultimate, simply proceed to a life of contemplation or of
action based on it. There is no doubt that this acting on an opaque
necessity is accompanied by a certain pleasure. See the reverence of
Carlyle for brute fact: "There is an infinite significance in fact."
"Necessity," says Duehring, and he means not rational but given
necessity, "is the last and highest point that we can reach.... It is
not only the interest of ultimate and definitive knowledge, but also
that of the feelings, to find a last repose and an ideal equilibrium in
an uttermost datum which can simply not be other than it is."

Such is the attitude of ordinary men in their theism, God's fiat being
in physics and morals such an {74} uttermost datum. Such also is the
attitude of all hard-minded analysts and _Verstandesmenschen_. Lotze,
Renouvier, and Hodgson promptly say that of experience as a whole no
account can be given, but neither seek to soften the abruptness of the
confession nor to reconc