M. Liard begins very properly by pointing out the confusion too often made between the notion of the infinite and that of the absolute. He says that the infinite can only be strictly understood in the mathematical sense, but that hence, as Leibnitz has said, the true infinite is the absolute. He admits the existence in the mind of the notion of the absolute in so far as it is inseparable from that of the relative. The Scotch philosopher, Hamilton, had endeavoured to suppress this notion, and had reproached Kant for not having completely exorcised the phantom of the absolute,[2] and for having retained it in the character of _idea_ while contesting its objective existence. It is remarkable that on this point, so decisive for metaphysics, Hamilton should have been opposed and refuted by the more modern English philosophers, who often pass for having pushed the critical and negative spirit further than he, when, indeed, on this point it is just the contrary. Herbert Spencer especially is one whom it is interesting to consult here. He maintains against Hamilton the notion of the absolute as positive, not negative, "as the correlative notion of the relative, as the substratum of all thoughts"--I quote verbally--"as the most important element of our knowledge."[3] He also maintains in opposition to Hamilton that the affirmation of the absolute is "a knowledge and not a belief." Only according to him this object that underlies all our thoughts is absolutely indeterminable by us. We know that it _is_, not _what_ it is. It is the incomprehensible, the unknowable. M. Liard seems to us substantially to admit all these conclusions. "Existence by others," he says, "is not to be understood without self-existence." "Without the spur of the notion of the absolute, how comprehend the obstinate persistence of the human mind in transcending the limits of the relative? Is not this a proof that the relative is not sufficient to itself?" It is one thing to affirm the absolute, another to determine its nature. Even granting that we be powerless to speak as to the essence of the absolute, and that it can never be for us other than the indeterminable and unknowable, "is it nothing to be assured of the existence of an unknowable? At all events religious beliefs might in default of scientific certainty find in an irremovable basis this conviction."