Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/302

 The Being of the contingent is merely its own Being, and is not the Being of an Other, of the Absolutely-necessary.

It has been shown that the first of these propositions has the true meaning, which was also the meaning expressed by the idea contained in the transition. We shall take up further on the speculative or philosophical connection which is itself immanent in those determinations of thought which constitute contingency.

The other proposition, however, is the proposition of the Understanding in which thinkers of modern times have so firmly intrenched themselves. What can be more reasonable than to hold that anything, any form of existence, and so, too, the contingent, since it is, is its own Being, is in fact just the definite Being which it is, and not rather an other kind of Being! The contingent is in this way retained on its own account separately from the Absolutely-necessary.

It is still easier to employ the characteristics finite and Infinite in order to express these two characteristics above mentioned, and thus to take the finite for itself, as isolated from its other, the Infinite. There is therefore, it is said, no bridge, no passage from finite Being to infinite Being. The finite is related only to itself, and not to its Other. The distinction which was made between knowledge as form and knowledge as content, is an empty one. This very difference between the two was rightly made the basis of syllogisms, syllogisms which start with the hypothesis that knowledge is finite, and for this reason conclude that this knowledge cannot know the Infinite because it has not the power of comprehending it. Conversely it is concluded that if knowledge did comprehend the Infinite it would necessarily be infinite itself; but it is admittedly not infinite, therefore it has not the power of knowing the Infinite. Its action is defined just as its content is. Finite knowledge and infinite knowledge yield the same kind of relation as is yielded by the