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by chance, chance in the truest sense of the term, we
are found with gods, men, stars, planets, devils, colours,
forces, and all the materials of the Cosmos.: and with
time, space and causality, the conditions limiting and
inyolving them all.
Remember that it is not true to say that our 0°
existed, nor that it did not exist. The idea of existence
‘was just as much unformulated as that of toasted cheese.
But0? is a finite expression, or has a finite phase, and
our universe is a finite universe ; its categories are
themselves finite, and the expression “infinite space” isa
contradiction in terms. The idea of an-absolute and
ofan infinite God, is relegated to the limbo of all similar
idle and pernicious perversions of truth. Infinity remains,
but only as a mathematical conception, as impossible in
nature as the square root of— 1. Against all this mathema-
tical, or semi-mathematical, reasoning, it may doubtless
be objected that our whole system of numbers, and of
manipulating them, is merely a series of conventions.
When I say that the square root of three is unreal, know
quite well that it is only so in relation to the series 1, 2,
3eetc., and that is equally unreal if] make the /3, = 250
the members of a ternary scale. But this, theoretically
true, is practically absurd. IfI mean “the number of a,
b, and c”, it does not matter ifI write y3 or *y50; theidea
is a definite one; and it is the fundamental ideas of
consciousness of which we are treating, and to which we
are compelled to refer everything, whether proximately
or ultimately.
So also my equation, fantastic as it may seem, has @