"A second characteristic of Consciousness is, that it is only possible in the form of a _relation_. There must be a Subject or person conscious, and an Object or thing of which he is conscious. There can be no consciousness without the union of these two factors; and in that union each exists only as it is related to the other. The subject is a subject only in so far as it is conscious of an object: the object is an object only in so far as it is apprehended by a subject: and the destruction of either is the destruction of consciousness itself. It is thus manifest that a consciousness of the Absolute is equally self-contradictory with that of the Infinite. . . Our whole notion of Existence is necessarily relative, for it is existence as conceived by us. But _Existence_, as we conceive it, is but a name for the several ways in which objects are presented to our consciousness--a general term embracing a variety of relations. . . To assume Absolute Existence as an object of thought is thus to suppose a relation existing when the related terms exist no longer. An object of thought exists, as such, in and through its relation to a thinker; while the Absolute, as such, is independent of all relation." Dr. Henry More has also a passage asserting the essential correlation on which I am here insisting (Immortality of the Soul, ch. ii. p. 3). And Professor Ferrier, in his Institutes of Metaphysic, has given much valuable elucidation respecting the essential relativity of cognition. Though this note is already long, I shall venture to add from an eminent German critic--Trendelenburg--a passage which goes to the same point. "Das Sein ist als die absolute Position erklärt worden. Der Begriff des Seins drücke blos das aus: es werde bei dem einfachen Setzen eines _Was_ sein Bewenden haben. Es hat sich hier die abstracte Vorstellung des Seins nur in eine verwandte Anschauung umgekleidet; denn das Gesetzte steht in dem Raum da; und insofern fordert die absolute Position schon den Begriff des seiendem Etwas, das gesetzt wird. _Fragt man weiter, so ist in der absoluten Position schon derjenige mitgedacht, der da setzt._ Das Sein wird also _nicht unabhängig aus sich selbst bestimmt_, sondern zur Erklärung _ein Verhältniss zu der Thätigkeit des Gedankens herbeigezogen_.