Anthropomorphism [pp. 120-144]

THE PR INCE TO-I RE VIER W
a regular Punch and Judy show, all ultimate concepts, as the
First Cause, the Infinite, the Absolute, are set up and knocked
down, and caused to knock each other down, until finally the
puppet Ignorance strides exultant over the sawdust bodies of
the slain. Mr. Spencer gives us, in the opening chapters of his
"First Principles," a metaphysical circus, in which the captive
concepts rise as high as the paper hoops, and then, falling back,
are one after another led out of the ring.
The attempt to construct a metaphysics of ultimate truths
out of concepts limited by definition to the pictures of the
imagination has always been a grotesque failure. The evolutional system, granting its definition of the conceivable, may be
justified in its criticism of the Constructive philosophy; but it is
inconsistent in subsequently bringing back, for its own use, the
very concepts so ignominiously driven from the field.
But we must limit our criticism here to a single part of the
self-contradictory metaphysics of agnosticism-the part which
bears directly upon the question under discussion. The Infinite,
having been cast aside as utterly inconceivable, is brought in
again mysteriously with a sufficiently definite outline to enable
the agnostic to use it in his argument. "Personality and Infinity are terms expressive of ideas which are mutually incompatible. The pseud-idea'infinite person' is neither more nor less
unthinkable than the pseud-idea' circular triangle.'"
The terms intelligence and personality in this discussion are
virtually synonymous. An intelligent First Cause must have
that conscious unity which we call personality. Is the phrase
"infinite person" a contradiction? The agnostic, still covered
with the sawdust of the demolished concepts, boldly says, "Yes."
Personality limits, determines, defines. The Infinite must cease
to be infinite when it is limited, determined, defined. Then the
First Cause, if infinite, cannot be a person-that is, intelligent; if
a person, he cannot be infinite.
Were this wretched abuse of the term "infinite" original with
this school, our condemnation of their metaphysical depravity
could not be too severe. Unfortunately, however, they only
borrow their dogmas from some of their most prominent adversaries, and thus present the reductio ad absurdum of a popular
and wide-spread metaphysics.
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