[Footnote 173: Unity is a characteristic or simple condition of real being, but it is not in itself a principle of being, so that "the One" could exist substantially by itself. To personify the barest of abstractions, call it God, and then try to imitate it, would seem too absurd a fallacy to have misled any one, if history did not show that it has had a long and vigorous life.] [Footnote 174: Cf. Sir W. Hamilton (_Discussions_, p. 21): "By abstraction we annihilate the object, and by abstraction we annihilate the subject of consciousness. But what remains? Nothing. When we attempt to conceive it as reality, we hypostatise the zero."] [Footnote 175: The Hon. P. Ramanathan, C.M.G., Attorney-General of Ceylon, _The Mystery of Godliness_. This interesting essay was brought to my notice by the kindness of the Rev. G.U. Pope, D.D., University Teacher in Tamil and Telugu at Oxford.] [Footnote 176: Hunt's summary of the philosophy of the Vedanta Sara (_Pantheism and Christianity_, p. 19) may help to illustrate further this type of thought. "Brahma is called the universal soul, of which all human souls are a part. These are likened to a succession of sheaths, which envelop each other like the coats of an onion. The human soul frees itself by knowledge from the sheath. But what is this knowledge? To know that the human intellect and all its faculties are ignorance and delusion. This is to take away the sheath, and to find that God is all. Whatever is not Brahma is nothing. So long as a man perceives himself to be anything, he is nothing. When he discovers that his supposed individuality is no individuality, then he has knowledge. Man must strive to rid himself of himself as an object of thought. He must be only a subject. As subject he is Brahma, while the objective world is mere phenomenon."] [Footnote 177: We may compare with them the following maxims, which, enclosed in an outline of Mount Carmel, form the frontispiece to an early edition of St. Juan of the Cross:-- "To enjoy Infinity, do not desire to taste of finite things. "To arrive at the knowledge of Infinity, do not desire the knowledge of finite things. "To reach to the possession of Infinity, desire to possess nothing. "To be included in the being of Infinity, desire to be thyself nothing whatever. "The moment that thou art resting in a creature, thou art ceasing to advance towards Infinity. "In order to unite thyself to Infinity, thou must surrender finite things without reserve." After reading such maxims, we shall probably be inclined to think that "the Infinite" as a name for God might be given up with advantage. There is nothing Divine about a _tabula rasa_.] [Footnote 178: Cf. Richard of St. Victor, _de Præp. Anim._ 83, "ascendat per semetipsum super semetipsum."]