An examination and popular exposition of the hylo-idealistic philosophy / by William Bell M'Taggart.

  • M'Taggart, William Bell, -1919.
Date:
[1884?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An examination and popular exposition of the hylo-idealistic philosophy / by William Bell M'Taggart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    nothing it is impossible to manufacture or create anything [an identical proposition, which must be always and every- where true, but which is not the least to the point when it is urged that, therefore, matter could not be evolved by something that is not matter]. That pure spirit could have evoked ex se a material universe, wholly and essentially different from itself, is an impossibility; for a fountain can only give forth that which it contains.’ Just so; but how does ‘Julian’ know what that fountain does contain ? He must know all that and more before he can assert what cannot come out of it. By the light of our recent examination, the reader will, I hope, with the aid of these brief notes, understand how entirely the whole subject under discussion is begged. Article 7 is even worse. ‘Julian’ continues :— ‘ If man has for his “ soul ” a spark or breath of Divinity, that spark or breath must be like Divinity, as a fragment of gold is like a mass of gold, and a drop of water is like water generally. But the essential attributes of Deity are infinity, ubiquity, omniscience, and omnipotence, none of which does man possess, and none of which is capable of degree; therefore the notion of man containing a spark or breath of Deity, called the soul, is wholly untenable.^ The absolute is here defined, limited with a certain amount of cocksureness which is refreshing in an author who, immediately afterwards, declares that the absolute is beyond the scope of his gnosis. But let us consider the statement that the absolute in its various phases is incap- able of degree. I venture to think that all these wholes are in relation to their part, and that man’s power of motion, both of body and thought, does stand in relation to ubiquity; and that man’s knowledge, man’s power, is in relation to omniscience and omnipotence. It is the word degree which is the misleading term. Degree implies proportion, and, as I have recently endeavoured to show, the absolute—the whole—must be in relation to