"Observe in the first place, that every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is demonstrated, distinctly postulates the positive existence of something beyond the relative. To say that we cannot know the Absolute, is, by implication, to affirm that there _is_ an Absolute. In the very denial of our power to learn _what_ the Absolute is, there lies hidden the assumption _that_ it is; and the making of this assumption proves that the Absolute has been present to the mind, not as a nothing but as a something. Similarly with every step in the reasoning by which this doctrine is upheld. The Noumenon, everywhere named as the antithesis of the Phenomenon, is throughout necessarily thought of as an actuality. It is rigorously impossible to conceive that our knowledge is a knowledge of Appearances only, without at the same time conceiving a Reality of which they are appearances; for appearance without reality is unthinkable." After carrying on this train of argument a little further, he reaches this just and decisive result. "Clearly, then, the very demonstration that a _definite_ consciousness of the Absolute is impossible to us, unavoidably presupposes an indefinite consciousness of it." Carrying the argument further, he says: "Perhaps the best way of showing that, by the necessary conditions of thought, we are obliged to form a positive though vague consciousness of this which transcends distinct consciousness, is to analyze our conception of the antithesis between Relative and Absolute." He follows the presentation of certain "antinomies of thought" with an extract from Sir William Hamilton's words, in which the logician enounces his doctrine that in "correlatives" "the positive alone is real, the negative is only an abstraction of the other"; or, in other words, the one gives a substance of some kind in the mind, the other gives simply nothingness, void, absolute negation. Criticizing this, Mr. Spencer is unquestionably right in saying: "Now the assertion that of such contradictories 'the negative is _only_ an abstraction of the other'--'is _nothing else_ than its negation'--is not true. In such correlatives as Equal and Unequal, it is obvious enough that the negative concept contains something besides the negation of the positive one; for the things of which equality is denied are not abolished from consciousness by the denial. And the fact overlooked by Sir William Hamilton is, that the like holds, even with those correlatives of which the negative is inconceivable, in the strict sense of the word." Proceeding with his argument, he establishes, by ample illustration, the fact that a "something constitutes our consciousness of the Non-relative or Absolute." He afterwards shows plainly by quotations, "that both Sir William Hamilton and Mr. Mansel do," in certain places, "distinctly imply that our consciousness of the Absolute, indefinite though it is, is positive not negative." Further on he argues thus: "Though Philosophy