Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/312

 it cannot comprehend infinitude, which, as opposed to finitude, is equally negation but in the reverse way, since it is Being, affirmation in contrast with the characteristic attached to finitude? What then can be clearer than that finitude comes to Man from both sides? He can comprehend a few feet of space, yet outside of this volume there lies the infinitude of space. He possesses a span of infinite time, which in the same way shrinks up into a moment as compared with this infinite time, just as his volume of space shrinks up into a point. But considered apart from this outward finitude which characterises him in contrast with those infinite externalities, he is intelligence, is able to perceive, to form ideas, to know, to have cognition of things. The object on which he exercises his intelligence is the world, this aggregate of infinite particular things. How small is the number of these known by individual men—it is not Man who knows but the individual—as compared with the infinite mass which actually exists. In order clearly to realise the paltry nature of human knowledge, we have only to remember a fact which cannot be denied, and which we are accustomed to describe as divine Omniscience, and to put it in the fashion in which it is expressed by the organist in L, in a funeral sermon reported in “The Courses of Life on Ascending Lines” (Part II., Supplement B.)—to mention once more a work marked by humour of the highest kind: “Neighbour Brise was speaking to me yesterday about the greatness of the good God, and the idea came into my head that the good God knew how to name every sparrow, every goldfinch, every wren, every mite, every midge, just as you call the people in the village, Schmied’s Gregory, Briefen’s Peter, Heifried’s Hans. Just think how the good God can call to every one of these midges which are so like each other that you would swear they were all sisters and brothers—just think of it!” But as compared with practical finitude the theoretical element