5
Tentirely sympathise with my unhappy friend Rev.
Mansel, B. D., * in his piteous and pitiful plaints against
the logical results of the Advaitist School. But on his
basal hypothesis of an infinite God; infinite space, time,
and so on, no other conclusion is possible. Mr. Mansel
is found in the impossible position of one who will
neither give up his premisses nor dispute the validity of
his logical processes, but who shrinks in horror from the
inevitable conclusion ; he supposes there must be something.
wrong somewhere, and concludes that the sole use of
reason is to discover its own inferiority to faith. As
Deussen “ well points out, faith in the Christian sense
merely amounts to being convinced on insufficient
grounds. This is surely the last refuge of incompetence.
But though, always on the original hypothesis of the
infinity of space, etc., the Advaitist position of the
Vedantists and the great Germans is unassailable, yet on
practical grounds the Dvaitists have all the advantage.
Fichte and the others exhaust themselves trying to turn
the simple and obvious position that: “If the Ego alone
exists, where is any place, not only for morals and religion,
which we can very well do without, but for the most
essential and continuous acts of life? Why should an.
infinite Ego fill a non-existent body with imaginary food
cooked in thought only over an illusionary fire by a cook
who is not there? Why should infinite power use such
finite means, and very often fail even then?”
* Encyclopedia Britannica. Art. Metaphysics.
+ The Principles of Mevaphysics, Macmillan.