and leaves every thing in the realm of Being beyond the relation of knowledge a contradiction; whereas it has only proved that the relation of knowledge exists wherever knowledge exists, and that the opposite is a contradiction."
It is quite true that I resolve Absolute Existence into a relation—a relation of two contradictories; that is, of two constituents, neither of which is conceivable out of relation to the other. In other words, mind, together with something (whatever it may be, for this I never undertake to settle) which is not mind, so strictly as mind itself is mind—this, with me, as I have already said, is alone Absolute Existence. This is what absolutely and truly exists. It is always a concrete and not an abstract. Mr Cairns is quite right here. But there is a slight suppressio veri in the statement, where he says that my system "leaves everything in the realm of Being beyond the relation of knowledge, a contradiction. He ought to have said, beyond the relation of divine or infinite knowledge, for it is only of things out of relation to infinite knowledge that I predicate contradiction, and these cannot properly be called things but only surds or nonsensicals. But it suited Mr Cairns better to leave out the word divine or infinite, and thereby to insinuate that I regarded things which lay beyond the relation of human, or mere finite, knowledge as contradictory—thus burthening me with an absurdity, and his scholars in the Town Council with a forged promissory note, which I fear they too readily indorsed as genuine.
I shall just add, that another misrepresentation presents itself in the latter part of this article, in the ridiculous grounds which Mr Cairns assigns for my conclusion as to Absolute Existence. He says that my system has "only proved that the relation of knowledge exists wherever knowledge exists, and that the opposite involves a contradiction." In other words, I have only proved that wherever there is knowledge there is knowledge! Where, I ask, have I proved this? In this case, as in others, Mr Cairns' character for veracity must depend on his ability to produce the passage; and that he certainly cannot do. These are hazardous experiments for a Christian minister to make.
