The whole argument as regards the conditionating nature of all thought is condensed into four words by Spinoza--"_Omnis determinatio est negatio_;" all determination is negation. Nothing can be more arbitrary or more fallacious than this principle. It arises from the confusion of two things essentially different--_the limits of a being_, and _its determinate and distinguishing characteristics_. The limit of a being is its imperfection; the determination of a being is its perfection. The less a thing is determined, the more it sinks in the scale of being; the most determinate being is the most perfect being. "In this sense God is the only being absolutely determined. For there must be something indetermined in all finite beings, since they have all imperfect powers which tend towards their development after an indefinite manner. God alone, the complete Being in whom all powers are actualized, escapes by His own perfection from all progress, and development, and indetermination."[326] [Footnote 325: North American Review, October, 1864, article, "The Conditioned and the Unconditioned," pp. 422, 423. See also Young's "Province of Reason," p. 72; and Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 183.] [Footnote 326: Saisset, "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. p. 71.] All real being must be determined; only pure Nothing can be undetermined. _Determination_ is, however, one thing; and _limitation_ is essentially another thing. "Even space and time, though cognized solely by negative characteristics, are determined in so far as differentiated from the existences they contain; but this differentiation involves no limitation of their infinity." If all distinction is determination, and if all determination is negation, that is (as here used), limitation, then the infinite, as distinguished from the finite, loses its own infinity, and either becomes identical with the finite, or else vanishes into pure nothing. If Hamilton will persist in affirming that all determination is limitation, he has no other alternatives but to accept the doctrine of Absolute Nihilism, or of Absolute Identity. If the Absolute is the indeterminate--that is, no attributes, no consciousness, no relations--it is pure non-being. If the Infinite is "the One and All," then there is but one substance, one absolute entity.