er by the native right of reason. It is asserted
that the finite cannot know the infinite, that the nature of God is
unknowable--except by means of a supernatural interference, which gives
to men a new power of spiritual discernment, and "reveals" to them
things which are "above reason," although not contrary to it. The
theologian often shields certain of his doctrines from criticism, on the
ground, as he contends, that there are facts which we must believe, but
which it would be presumptuous for us to pretend to understand or to
demonstrate. They are the proper objects of "faith."

But this view of the weakness of the intelligence when applied to
supersensuous facts, is held along with an undisturbed conviction of the
validity of our knowledge of ordinary objects. It is believed, in a
word, that there are two kinds of realities,--natural and supernatural;
and that the former is knowable and the latter not.

It requires, however, no great degree of intellectual acumen to discover
that this denial of the validity of our knowledge of these matters
involves its denial in all its applications. The ordinary knowledge of
natural objects, which we begin by regarding as valid, or, rather, whose
validity is taken for granted without being questioned, depends upon our
ideas of these supersensible objects. In other words, those fundamental
difficulties which pious opinion discovers in the region of theology,
and which, as is thought, fling the human intellect back upon itself
into a consciousness of frailty and finitude, are found to lurk beneath
our ordinary knowledge. Whenever, for instance, we endeavour to know any
object, we find that we are led back along the line of its conditions to
that which unconditionally determines it. For we cannot find the reason
for a particular object in a particular object. We are driven back
endlessly from one to another along the chain of causes; and we can
neither discover the first link nor do without it. The first link must
be a cause of itself, and experience yields none such. Such a cause
would be the unconditioned, and the unconditioned we cannot know. The
final result of thinking is thus to lead us to an unknown; and, in
consequence, all our seeming knowledge is seen to have no intelligible
basis, and, therefore, to be merely hypothetical. If we cannot know God,
we cannot know anything.

This view is held by the Positivists, and the most popular English
exponent of it is, perhaps, Mr. H