According to the strict reasonings of Kant in his _Criticism of Pure Reason_, and the somewhat looser discussions of Mr. Spencer in his _First Principles_ a science of Metaphysics or theory of the Infinite, Absolute, or Unconditioned is impossible. As a result of the criticism by Kant, Jacobi claimed the Absolute for Faith: and Spencer banishes the Absolute or Unknowable to the sphere of Religion to be worshipped or ignored, but in either case blindly. As we have already seen, Hegel does not accept this distribution of provinces between religion and philosophy. There is only one world, one reality: but it is known more or less fully, more or less truly and adequately. It is presented in one way to the sensuous imagination: in another to the scientific analyst: in a third to the philosopher. To the first it is a mere succession or expanse of pictures, facts, appearances: and outside it--somewhere, but not here,--there is a land, a being of perfect wholeness and harmony. To the second it is an unending chain of causes and effects, of one thing simplified by being referred to another till at last a mighty all-explaining nullity, called an 'Ultimate Cause,' is presumed to linger, eternally unperceived at the infinitely-distant end of the series. To the third everything is seen in connexion, but not a mere uni-linear connexion: each, when studied, more and more completes itself by including those relations which seemed to stand outside: each fully realised, or completely invested with its ideal implications, is seen no longer to be an incident or isolated fact, but an implicit infinite, and a vice-gerent of the eternal. Philosophy thus releases both ordinary and scientific knowledge from their limitations; it shows the finite passing into the infinite. And Hegel, accordingly, purposes to show that this unfathomable Absolute is very near us, and at our very door: in our hands, as it were, and especially present in our every-day language. If we are ever to gain the Absolute, we must be careful not to lose one jot or tittle of the Relative[1]. The Absolute--this term, which is to some so offensive and to others so precious--always presents itself to us in Relatives: and when we have persistently traced the Proteus through all its manifestations,--when we have, so to speak, seen the Absolute Relativity of Relation, there is very little more needed in order to apprehend the Absolute pure and entire. One may say of the Absolute what Goethe[2] says of Nature: 'She lives entirely in her children: and the mother, where is she?'