they exist. Atheism is, then, impossible; some men may want the term, the word, but all men believe in God.

are.

The world and ourselves are found in the fact of consciousness as causes, and God is also found in the same fact, as a cause, the infinite, the absolute cause, which is the cause and substance of the relative and finite causes which we and nature God, then, exists to us under the character of a cause. A little reflection soon discovers the identity of cause and substance. We call ourselves and the world substances for the simple reason that they are causes, and in our conception the limits of their causality are the limits of their substantiality. God, being absolute cause, is absolute substance. If absolute, he must be one, for two absolutes are an absurdity. The relative, free, intentional causality, personality, which we are, implies absolute intentional causality, absolute personality; and, as the absolute can be found only in the absolute, it follows that God is not a blind, fatal causality, but a free, intentional cause, that is, a person. Descending again into the reason, we find there the absolute principles of the Just and the Beautiful. These principles, being absolute, belong to the absolute. Hence, from the absolute principles of Causality, Substance, Unity, Intentionality, the Just, and the Beautiful, we obtain the absolute God, Cause of causes, Being of beings, substance of substances, unity of unities, intentionality of intentionalities, morally just, beautiful, righteous, —our Father.

It should be remarked, that we do not infer the Absolute from the relative, the Infinite from the finite, God from nature and humanity. The Absolute is no logical creation, no production of reasoning. It could not be deduced from the relative. No dialectic skill has ever yet been able to draw the infinite from the finite, the unconditioned from the conditioned. Both terms are given together, both are primitive data, without which no reasoning could possibly take place. Remove from man the idea of the infinite, or of the finite, and he would be incapable of a single intellectual act. A man, to reason, must assert something, and must assert that something to be either infinite or finite. But no man can say that a thing is finite without having at the same time the conception of the infinite; or that a thing is infinite without at the same time conceiving the finite. Neither, then, can be deduced from the other; both coexist in the intelligence as its fundamental elements, and not only coexist, but coexist as cause and effect. Hence the ideas of

the infinite, the finite and their relation, not of mere coexistence but as cause and effect, are inseparable and essential elements of all intellection. This being true, all three, embracing all existence, ourselves, God, and the world, must have existed in the understanding, before ever an intelligent act was possible. They are, then, so far from being inferred, some from the others, that all then must exist before an inference is possible. They are the primitive data of the intellect, the startingpoints of all reasoning. That is, when they are considered in relation to their logical origin, though in point of fact they are not developed in the understanding, till the understanding begins to act. All three, however, are developed simultaneously in the first fact of the intellectual life.

But if the absolute logically precedes the relative, and if the conceptions of the infinite, the finite, and their relation be indispensable conditions of all reasoning, it follows of course that our belief in God, in nature, in our own existence, is the result of no reasoning. When we first turned our minds inward in the act of reflection, we found that belief. We had it, and every man has it, from the first dawn of the intellect. It does not proceed then from reflection; and, as reflection is the only intellectual act in which we have any agency, it follows that it does not exist in consequence of any thing we have willed or done. It is prior to our action, and independent of it. Whence then its origin? It must be a primitive, spontaneous belief, the result of the spontaneity of the reason. The reason sees by its own light, is itself active; and, being in relation with the objective and the absolute, it can and does of itself reveal to the consciousness God and the world, giving by its own vigor the belief in question. The reason, being in its nature independent, and in its spontaneity acting independently of us, and though developing itself in us, is a good and legitimate witness for what lies beyond us, and exists independent of us.

Is this a legitimate passage from the subjective to the objective, from psychology to ontology, from the phenomenon to being, from the relative to the absolute, from the conditioned to the unconditioned ? Is there here a verification of that law of our nature, which determines us to believe in God and an external world? Is there here a proof, that our belief in the existence of the world and of God has any objective reality to respond to it? The reason is independent, it is objective; therefore,

it is a legitimate authority for the objective. The reason is objective, it is absolute, and therefore a sufficient witness for the absolute. The reason reveals the absolute, therefore the absolute exists. This conclusion, which we believe to be correct, rests upon an assumption of the credibility of the reason. The reason may declare itself to be independent, absolute, but how can we prove that it is not a law of thought, a mere mode of intellectual activity? It is true we may so define personality as to make the reason objective in relation to what we are pleased to term ourself, but a definition is not a demonstration. We have only the reason with which to prove the reason's independence; consequently, we have only its own word that it is not subjective. We attain the objective on the faith of the reason, but we have no voucher for that faith.

We dissent from M. Cousin with no little distrust of ourselves; but we confess that we are unable to conceive the possibility of absolutely demonstrating, logically proving, the objective, till we can obtain an independent witness to vouch for the independence and veracity of the reason.

This wit

ness we have not, and cannot have. If such a witness could be supposed, he could give his testimony to us only through the reason, and we should still have only the reason's authority for it. We must take the reason's word that the reason has correctly reported what the witness has testified. But at the same time that we deny the possibility of demonstrating the objectivity of the reason in relation to man, though we may do it in relation to the will, we contend that there is no need of doing it. The reason sees, and knows, and truly reveals the absolute, the infinite, the unconditioned, the spiritual world, God. It sees and reveals the spiritual world, the world of reality, by its own light and energy; and this is the highest degree of certainty we ever have, the highest we ever ask, for none of us have ever asked that the reason be proved reasonable. M. Cousin, we think, has demonstrated all that he was required to demonstrate. He has shown beyond a question, that the reason, which is our only light, gives us the Absolute, God, and external nature, as positively and on the same authority as our own existence or the apperceptions of consciousness. We have no authority for either but the reason, and that is given as decidedly for one as the other. We may be as certain, then, that there is a God as that we exist. But we cannot prove it. We cannot prove that we exist, because, in

every attempt to prove our existence, we are obliged to assume it, and because we have nothing more evident than our existence with which to prove it. But are we less certain that we exist on this account? That which we best know, is least susceptible of being proved. The proof must be more certain than that which is to be proved. When, therefore, the proposition in question is one of those which have the highest degree of certainty, it of course cannot be proved. But it is certain without being proved. The Deity knows all things; but could he, if he would, prove to himself this fact? With what should he prove it? What is more evident to him than the fact that he knows all things? We are now engaged in writing, we know what we are doing, but we should be at a loss to prove to ourselves that we are writing. But, to our very great relief, we discover no necessity of having it proved. So, in relation to ontology, we know it, but cannot prove it. With what shall we prove it? The reason is the only eye with which we see it, and we have no witness but the reason to bring to prove that the reason's eye really sees it. But as the deposition of the reason is always all the proof we ask, we need no other witness.

The whole matter, then, turns on the credit due the reason. Grant reason tells the truth, we know the Absolute, the Unconditioned, God. Deny the reason, or declare the reason unworthy to be believed, and we neither know God, the world, ourselves, nor any thing else. We are reduced to a worse strait than to "doubt that doubt itself be doubting," a strait in which we cannot possibly remain even in thought so long as it takes to name it. Thus much, we think, M. Cousin has done, and, we believe, it is all that he considers himself as having done, though he calls it a demonstration, which we contend it is not. The demonstration would require him to prove the credibility of the reason, a thing which he cannot do, because he has only the reason with which to establish the truth of the reason. But this is no cause of regret. We want no higher authority than the reason. The reason in all its essential elements is in every man. It is the light, "the true light that lighteneth every man that cometh into the world." As it reveals spontaneously, in every man's consciousness, the vast world of reality, the absolute God, the cause and substance of all that APPEARS, it follows that every man has the witness of the spiritual world, of the Absolute, the Infinite, God, in himself.

IV. The reason can reveal nothing which it has not in itself. If it reveal the absolute, it must itself be absolute. If absolute, it must be the Being of beings, God himself. The elements of the reason are then the elements of God. An analysis of the reason gives, as its elements, the ideas of the infinite, the finite, and their relation as cause and effect. Then these ideas are the elements of all thought, of thought in itself, of God. God then, is thought, reason, intelligence in itself. An intelligence which does not manifest itself, is a dead intelligence, a dead thought; but a dead thought, a dead intelligence, is inconceivable. To live, to exist, intelligence must manifest itself. God, being thought, intelligence in itself, must necessarily manifest himself. To manifest himself is to create, and his manifestation is creation.

In going from humanity and nature to God, we found him a cause. If he be a cause, he must create, that is, cause something. A cause which does not create is no cause at all. Creation then is necessary. God ceases to exist to us in exact proportion as he ceases to be a creator. But out of what can God create? Not out of nothing as is easily shown. The hypothesis of the independent existence of matter is also inadmissible. If matter can exist independent of God, then it is sufficient for itself; if sufficient for itself, it is almighty, absolute. There would then be two absolutes. Two independent existences, matter on the one side, and God on the other, would be a gross absurdity. God, then, can create only out of himself; that is, by developing, manifesting, himself.

But God can manifest only what is in himself. He is thought, intelligence itself. Consequently there is in creation nothing but thought, intelligence. In nature, as in humanity, the supreme Reason is manifested, and there, where we had fancied all was dead and without thought, we are now enabled to see all living and essentially intellectual. There is no dead matter, there are no fatal causes; nature is thought, and God is its personality. This enables us to see God in nature, in a new and striking sense, and gives a sublime meaning to the words of Paul: "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world, even his eternal power and Godhead, are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made." Well may we study nature, for, as a whole and in the minutest of its parts, it is a manifestation of the Infinite, the Absolute,