view, "creation at any particular moment of time" is seen to be the only possible hypothesis by which to account for the Universe. Such a _Person_, the necessary Being, must have been in existence before the Universe; and his first act in producing that Universe would mark the first moment of time. No "alternative of Pantheism" is, can be, presented to the advocates of this theory. On the other hand, that scheme is seen to be both impossible and absurd. One cannot disagree with Mr. Mansel, when in the next paragraph he says, that, "supposing the Absolute to become a cause, it will follow that it operates by means of free will and consciousness." But the difficulties which he then raises lie only in the Understanding, and may be explained thus. Always in God's consciousness _the subject and object are identical_. All that God is, is always present to his Eye. Hence all relations always appear subordinate to, and dependent upon him; and it is a misapprehension of the true idea to suppose, that any relation which falls _in idea_ within him, and only becomes actual at his will, is any proper limitation. Both subject and object are thus absolute, being identical; and yet there is no contradiction. The difficulty is further raised that there cannot be in the absolute Being any interrelations, as of attributes among themselves, or of attributes to the Being. This arises from an erroneous definition of the term absolute. The definition heretofore given in this treatise presents no such difficulty. The possession of these attributes and interrelations is essential to the exclusion by then possessor of another independent Being; and it is a perversion to so use a quality which is essential to a being, that it shall militate against the consistency of his being what he must be. If then "the almost unanimous voice of philosophy, in pronouncing that the absolute is both one and simple," uses the term "simple" in the same sense that it would have when applied to the idea of moral obligation, viz., that it is unanalyzable, then that voice is wrong, just as thoroughly as the voice of antiquity in favor of the Ptolemaic system of Astronomy was wrong; and is to be treated as that was. On such questions _opinions_ have no weight. The search is after a knowledge which is sure, and which every man may have within himself. We land, then, in no "inextricable dilemma." The absolute Person we see to be conscious; and to possess complexity in unity, universality in totality. By an immediate intuition we know him as primarily out of all relation, plurality, difference, and likeness; and yet as having, of his own self, established the Universe, which is still entirely dependent upon him; from which he differs, and with which he is not identified.