Considering how far Hegel confirms the American Positivist's opinion respecting the inevitable conclusions of consistent Empiricism, Mr. Spencer may with reason be congratulated on his very happy inconsistency. The subject of quotation No. 2--Spencer's position in regard of the Unknowable--contains a censure which unites in alliance many widely differing authorities on this side the Atlantic. Some of these assail it from an extremely hostile point of view; but the criticism of others is conceived in a half-friendly, half-indifferent spirit. Mr. Spencer has very lately published a third volume of "Essays," and devotes Articles X. and XI. to his reviewers.[134] It need hardly be said that these pages will repay perusal. We shall here venture on giving a brief account of his defence as it presents itself to our own understanding. The most salient difference between him and his critics _generally_, seems to lie in this circumstance;--they begin by taking the word "Unknowable" in its strict (_i.e._ its proper) signification. Hence they appear to assume that by "Absolute" he means--or _ought_ to mean even when seeming to say the contrary--"_absolutely_ abstract." Now of a mere, that is, a pure and complete abstraction, nothing can be predicated, because the idea is perfectly empty. It is in fact a Nothingness. But suppose we say of this Absolute, (as Spencer does), it exists;--we _have_ predicated something already;--something which destroys its complete emptiness. And again, if we are asked or, (what is better), ask ourselves how we _know_ that an Absolute does exist, and proceed to reply, as Spencer himself replies, because it _must_ exist; we shall have made respecting our Absolute this highest of all possible predications. It is not only Being, but necessary Being, or, in other words, it is a Self-Existent. Still more, since it is so in contradistinction from the universe of relativities, it is The Self-Existent, a totally different idea from that which the American editor dissects. But now comes the question, who or what is answerable for the Reviewer's misconception,--Spencer or his critics? Is it the poverty of language, or the law of controversial sequency,--a law under which every thought arises as antagonistic to some other thought, and afterwards, when arisen and firmly established so as to become the subject of analysis, is found to yield more than was at first conceived. Then, of course, another antithesis arises respecting it, and we have to decide how much and what is truly meant, a question which often comes before us in this shape:--Is our thought merely the _not_ so and so, or is it a real _substantive_ idea? In the former case it is one-sided and negative; in the latter it is many-sided and affirmative.