that space exists in time, every portion of space in every portion of time, and the whole of space in the whole of time. But it is by no means so happy a figure to talk of time existing in space. Indeed, I doubt whether the language be not absurd. But, at all events, if we do consent to speak in this way, we must remember that it is in two quite different senses that time and space (or, to give them their full titles, the Being of Infinity of Extension, and the Being of Infinity of Duration) stand to one another in the relations of containing and contained, and that by so speaking we involve ourselves in no contradiction, since each exists in the other in a different respect. In logic we say, quite harmlessly, that species exists in genus, and genus in species, because it is understood by every one that species exists in genus in respect of extension, and genus in species in respect of intension. And something very similar is the case with the B. o. I. o. Expansion and the B. o. I. o. Duration.

But there is another and perhaps still more remarkable feature in Mr. Gillespie's imaginary reductio ad absurdum. It is that, whether time and space exist as independent entities or not, the fact remains that in a certain metaphorical sense of the terms, different in each case, time is in space, and space in time. If this, therefore, be pronounced an absurdity, it will be fatal to any hypothesis whatever that can be framed with regard to the existence of time and space. Let it be assumed that there is a Being Infinite and Eternal, then if Infinity and Eternity must be one on account of their mutual inter-penetration, and it is yet absurd to consider them one, it will follow that the existence of such a Being is absurd.

On the whole of this subject I find that Mr. Gillespie has already had the error of his ways strongly pointed out to him by a writer in the National Reformer, signing himself R. H. B. How he could have failed to see and acknowledge the fallacy when his attention was directly called to it, is a thing hard to be understood. Yet it may

well be, reader, that if you or I had spun as subtle a web. of argument, particularly if it seemed to establish a con-clusion to which we clung as to life itself, we should be. equally blind to its defects.

Perhaps it will not be amiss to remark here that on whichever side our feelings may be in the dispute between Theism and Atheism, and whatever we may consider to have been the skill in verbal fence displayed by the combatants on either side, the truth of argument lay with the so-called "Atheists." Mr. Bradlaugh, who was one of the disputants, may be the Devil-all I say is, "Give: him his due." But why the so-called "Atheists ?" For more reasons than one. Both because the man who tries to act up to the light within him, be his creed matter or spirit, eternal life or eternal death, has what gives value to "faith in God;" and also because the Atheist proper is now almost extinct. He stood on precisely the same dogmatic platform as the Theologian, only maintaining the contradictory of his opponent's propositions. Both of them

"Blind guides that feel for a path, where highway is none to be had." The theologian still asserts as a truth admitting of no dispute that there is a certain Being, distinct from the Universe, that would exist unimpaired, not only if all matter, but if all mind also, as we know it, were destroyed; which Being he calls God; he asserts further that the material universe is finite and temporary. The Atheist. used to maintain, with equal pertinacity, that there could be no being distinct from the material universe, and that matter was necessarily infinite and eternal.

But to return. If only the quibble we have been examining had been allowed to pass muster, we see what Mr. Gillespie would have gained. He would have seemed to demonstrate the absurdity of supposing that infinity of expansion may subsist by itself, which, as we have seen, is only another way of stating that the material universe, considered as a combination of matter and void, is

infinitely extended; and would have seemed to explode in like manner the hypothesis of the self-existence of infinity of duration. Consequently he would have proved that there is an immaterial Being, distinct from space itself, filling all space, and enduring through all time. As no approach to this was contained in our premises, I must confess to having had all along a pretty shrewd suspicion, that it would not be squeezed out of them, being aware, as Whately puts it, that "The object of all reasoning is simply to expand and unfold the assertions wrapped up, as it were, and implied in those with which we set out."

The reader cannot fail to have observed that in the last proposition which we have considered, or shall need to consider, the outlines of Deity were already limned. out in majestic proportions, and that all that remained. was to fill in the details. As a matter of reasoning, we admit there may be such a Being, demurring only when Mr. Gillespie says "there must." "There must," because otherwise time would be space and space time. However much we may desire to reach God, surely this is not the way! Who knows but we may have to fall back after all upon the " cardiac impulse" of poor Mr. Gilfillan ?

We have now seen how Mr. Gillespie has cleared away the hypothesis of the self-existence of space and time-an hypothesis fatal to all à priori proof of the being of a a God. He has introduced a gratuitous absurdity, and pinned it to the coat-tails of the hypothesis in question-a most unfair and unkind attempt to bring a perfectly respectable proposition into ridicule. But the laugh, we may be sure, will not be taken up by an audience of good feeling. Mr. Gillespie, however, quite takes it for granted that he has brought the theory into universal discredit, and henceforward assumes the truth of its rival. We, on the contrary, who entertain no special spite against the unfortunate hypothesis that stands in Mr. Gillespie's way, will bear in mind that it

is still an open question whether infinity of expansion. and infinity of duration are independent entities or not.. But in Mr. Gillespie's eyes the question is now closed, and, accordingly, in the rest of the train of reasoning we quite leave behind us and lose sight of the only meaning of the word "Being," which our concessions entitle us to make use of, namely-for we cannot be too particular-that in which "Infinity of Extension and the Being of Infinity of Extension are not different, as standing to one another in the relation of mode and subject of the mode, but are. identical."

One more glance before parting at the turning point of the whole demonstration. There must be an Infinite and Eternal Being, for otherwise, space would be time, and time space. Such is the sum and substance of "The Argument, à priori, for the Being and the Attributes of the Lord God, the Absolute One, and First Cause." And yet this is the argument to which Sir William Hamilton. solemnly gave his approbation, while the mob have been flinging their hats into the air, and making the welkin. ring with acclamation!

Yet I would not seem to take leave of Mr. Gillespie with a note of triumph on my lips. His task has been the hardest of the hard, because impossible; mine an easy and an obvious one. I have not had to climb to the moon on a beanstalk myself, but merely to come with a pair of scissors and snip Mr. Gillespie's beanstalk under him.

A word in closing.-I have not shrunk from exposing,. according to the measure of my ability, the unsoundness. of Mr. Gillespie's pretended demonstration; yet I admire greatly the constructive power he has exhibited, and think his book a great service to philosophy. We may

rest from controversy on this subject now till a better case has been made out on the same side-and we shall rest in peace.

THEISM.

REV

EVERENCE and devotion cling round the past, and not one step can be made in advance without a wrench to every fibre of our moral nature. The history of human thought may be represented as a progress of the head and the heart, in which the head is always outstripping the heart, like Eneas flying from Troy with Creüsa lagging in the rear, or like Lot hurrying from Sodom, while his wife gazes backward with fond regret. Heaven grant that the intellect's tender spouse may never be lost in turmoil or frozen into bitterness!

When a belief has been well implanted in the mind it takes root downwards-in assured conviction, and bears fruit upwards-in the conduct of life; like the stout oak, rearing its arms on high, and sheltering the sons of men from the blackness of the heavens above. Meanwhile the tendrils of the heart twine round it like the clinging ivy, and at first derive their support wholly from its unshaken strength. But the oak is doomed in the fulness of its days to perish. Then, amid rottenness and decay, the ivy, now itself a tree, becomes in turn the supporter. Long after the intellectual basis of a belief is gone, gnawed away by the canker-worm of thought, the belief itself will flourish, strong in the vitality of enduring sentiment. Hence the extreme difficulty that attends every change in the most important convictions of mankind; hence the obloquy that is the inevitable lot of the reformer; hence the anguish, the heartburning, the outlawed life, the malefactor's death. It is well that it should be so. It is well