cannot arrive at the certainty of the real existence of any exterior object, and that consequently man can veritably know nothing. Fichte, Schelling, and all the German philosophers, using with marvellous subtlety the metaphysical system of the Königsberg philosopher, essayed in vain to break through this fatal result, and to pass from the absolute Ego of Descartes and Kant to objective reality. Then arose Hegel, enlightened and warned by the failure of his predecessors, and he laid down the problem under a new form, making it rise out of the absolute. Being, said he, is the undetermined absolute, in face of which you are situated like the eye that gazes on the sun, dazzled and blinded, and incapable of perceiving anything clearly, because everything strikes you simultaneously.

That which is absolutely unlimited is to you equal to zero, all becomes identical with nothing; absolute being is equivalent to entire negation.

The rigorous consequence of this doctrine was the im possibility of knowing God, the Absolute, directly, and by any other means than by an intermediary, a mediator between Him and us. It was a mortal blow struck at rationalism and at deism, though this has not been generally perceived and acknowledged. Hegel, who foresaw the inconceivable fecundity of his system, became himself bewildered, seized with giddiness, and partially blinded by it. By one of those mysterious contradictions so often found in great thinkers, he was unfaithful to his own theory, and erected that very theory into the Absolute.

According to Hegel's system, contraries do not exclude, but on the contrary imply, one another. This proposition, which ignorance can alone prevent us from accepting, is a vulgar, palpable, universal fact, presenting itself to our eyes incessantly in Nature and in ourselves. We cannot

take a step without striking against this inevitable antinomy of two terms opposed, which imply and define each other, as the down thrust at one end of a lever and the upward thrust at the other. Night implies and defines day, so does cold imply and define heat, movement repose, unity diversity, force matter. Suppress one of these two terms, and the other instantaneously disappears.

Every proposition, therefore, is a negative; every notion has in it the idea of the opposite to itself. But again, all negation is affirmation. Admit a third, intermediate term, and in it these mutual contradictions are resolved into friendly contrast. Thus, in this one hypothetical concept diversities are included, differences are conciliated, and contradictions are effaced; for this "moment" which is the Ideal embraces all in its entirety, and binds every moment phase and expression of being, which relatively negative each other, into unity.

Thus, in man, the Indefinite conciliates the relative and the personal, the limited and the unlimited, reason and sentiment. And man himself is the "moment" between the world and the Absolute, part divine, part animal, united in the simplicity of an unique personality, destined to live in other men and in all creatures, to make all live in God. What more admirable conception than this, of man restoring the universe to unity, its eternal principle, without anywhere effacing distinction.

According to the Hegelian method, unity can never become uniformity, for unity exacts diversity as its antinomical moment, without which it could not exist; and diversity implies unity as its raison d'être. Thus nature constantly engaged in analysis, in developing individualities, in particularizing and specializing, is incapable of falling into a chaos of conflicting elements, for this analytical pro

cess implies the opposite, or synthetic process which unifies all these individualities, and conciliates all in a totality of being.

Thus man is also an antinomy. He represents Being under the two contradictory terms which constitute him; 1st, that which is indefinite and indetermined, which is called Spirit; 2nd, that which is determined and definite, which is vulgarly called body, and in philosophical language, limit. Such is the radical antinomy. But these terms are only fixed points imagined for our orientation. The body is always changing and shifting its relations, and the spirit is in incessant progress also. Man, in reality, is movement; and these terms express, not places of arrest, but the double orientation, one towards God, the other towards the world. Though these two words signify opposition, we might almost say contradiction, it by no means follows that they exclude each other. On the contrary, if the undetermined, the spirit, was always unlimited, without formulæ to define and determine it, it would know nothing, it would be incapable of knowing anything. These terms, apparently opposed and contradictory, imply one another, and unite in a simple term which, giving to the undetermined a form which defines and limits it, constitutes the conception, the idea.

But the contraries thus conciliated, the antinomy reappears; for this conception or idea contains in itself two things opposed, the living spirit which is the essence, and the form or letter which is the boundary and limit. Thus, for instance, the astronomer, after having determined the rotation of the earth on its own axis in twenty-four hours, determines its movement about the sun in three hundred and sixty-five days. These two opposed movements are identified by him in a sole force which produces both.

But the antinomy thus effaced, another rises up under another form, and continues to exist indefinitely, as a series of equations always resolving into higher equations, incessantly approximating the total astronomical verity, towards which they tend interminably, without being able to reach it finally.

This is one of the manifestations of the infinite which we find everywhere. What man does in astronomy, he does in every aspect of life. He incessantly formulates himself in sentiments, thoughts and acts, which are so many diverse terms of the movement of his life, but which are never its extreme limit. For his life, incessantly gaining in activity by these progressive determinations, breaks successively the dead forms at the same moment that it assumes them, to emerge into new sentiments, ideas and acts, which it will again escape from in its unflagging and indefinite ascension.

Thus there opens out to man a magnificent prospect of advance in the acquisition of truth, beauty and goodness; for if these are three aspects of the Ideal, three indefinite realities never to be attained in their entirety, because by their nature they are infinite, the progress of man in science, art and virtue is without possible limit.

He can never arrive at the term of knowledge, never exhaust the circle of the sciences, he can never reach the boundary of the beautiful, but like the waves of the mighty sea, form after form of loveliness will break upon the shore of his perception, he will never attain the perfection of virtue, but goodness will present an infinite variety of modulations as the relations of men alter, so as to be always fresh, always new; the materials may be always the same, but the kaleidoscopic changes will be infinitely diversified. We say that science is in its infancy; it will never be

come decrepid, for if truth be infinite, there will always be new aspects of it to be discovered. Art cannot become worn out; from change to change it will alter its type, but each type will be beautiful, and none will be exhaustive. Goodness will be infinitely varied, as the social and political arrangements of men are permuted and afford openings for new varieties and combinations of goodness.

All this follows if we allow the Infinite, or God; if we do not allow Him, we fall into the bondage of the finite. But how are we to refuse to allow this, when we have within us the sentiment of the indefinite pointing to the infinite, and when without it, our existence becomes an enigma impossible of solution.

As I have said before, God's existence escapes demonstration; it is idle to ask reason to prove what is beyond its scope, for reason is the faculty of dealing with the finite. If we accept the existence of God, it will have to be as an axiom; but a necessary axiom, for the existence of the finite implies its contrary the infinite.

If the existence of the sentiment of the indefinite be objected to, I answer, have I not a sense of beauty, goodness and truth? can I not distinguish the beautiful from the ugly, the good from the evil, truth from falsehood? If I have, and no one can dispute this, then I have a second term leading to the third, the existence of God. From the finite I rise to the sense of the indefinite, and thence I arrive at the infinite which completes the problem. I have the opposite and the conciliatory "moments."

If I accept Hegel's hypothesis of the conciliation of antinomies, I cannot avoid the conclusion that God exists as the opposed pole to the world of finalities.

And what is more, without the idea of God, or the Infinite, science, art and morals are impossible. The sense

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