combines into a whole their various branches. Its object is the eternal truth, the unchangeable, unborn, and imperishable,of which all that can be truly said is, that IT is. This eternal and unchangeable being we call God.” A demand for Absolute Science has been made in all Ontological systems, because Ontology is "The Science of Being," and it must therefore attempt to define the nature of Absolute and of Phenomenal Being, and to show the relationship that exists between them; and this demand has been made in all Eclectical systems of Philosophy, because these are constructed for the purpose of uniting opposite ontological and psychological systems. This demand was made even by the Speculative School founded by Kant, who commenced an inquiry into the nature of subjective and objective experiences, and into the relationship between Absolute Being and the facts of the human consciousness. Kant, however, came to the conclusion, that neither the Subjective nor the Absolute could be conceived; and that natural appearances, which have their ground in sensible experience, constitute both the form and the substance of all possible knowledge: while all the writers of this school not only came to the pantheistic conclusion that Absolute and Phenomenal - Subjective and Objective -Being and Nought—are one and the same, but ended in realizing a form of Anthropomorphism, or a conception of God founded upon the facts of the human consciousness. Kant commenced this by saying, "From the cognition of Self to the cognition of the World, and through these to the Supreme Being, the progression is so natural, that it seems to resemble the logical march of Reason from the premises to the conclusion:" and his followers ended in asserting, that God first arrives at a definite self-consciousness in human nature, or through the consciousness of individual men; and thus accepted the theory of Spinoza, that all things of which we become conscious are simply modes of manifestation in the Infinite Substance, outside of which nothing can exist. The possibility of realizing Absolute Science has always been denied by the moral and sensualistic schools in Philosophy; and the reason for this is, that they are purely psychological, and therefore are constructed from, or are founded entirely upon, the facts of the natural consciousness, which present the most discordant collection of phenomena that can possibly be conceived; these being external and deceptive in character, and realized in a region of the mind which cannot become receptive either of laws from the Reason, by which absolute rationality is demanded, or of analogies from the Imagination, corresponding with these, by which it is represented; but is dependent for all its knowledge upon generalizations and classifications of these discordant phenomena by the "Fancy," under the laws of "Contrast" and "Resemblance," in a form of Unity in Diversity, by which a fictitious representation is produced that is an inversion of the real condition and relationships of things. This possibility has also been denied by the Theologians and by the Church, for the reason that the religious mind can believe in nothing higher than theological truth, and supposes the religious to be the spiritual condition of the individual: while, as we shall clearly demonstrate, Religion and Rationality are, in the natural, necessarily antagonized and destructive to each other; and the religious and the spiritual conditions of the soul are not only antagonized, but are the farthest removed from each other in the order of production. As an introduction to the present work, therefore, we will consider the grounds upon which this opposition to Absolute Science is founded; why this position has been taken, and why it cannot be sustained; and then show the ground that we have for a belief in the possibility of Absolute Science for man, and the reasons we have for believing that such a science has been realized in this work. The sensualistic philosophers have sought to obtain a ground for their opposition to Absolute Science by assuming two premises which are palpably unphilosophical: these are, the identity of the Absolute, the Spiritual, and the Infinite, which they characterize as Invisible; and the identity of Creation and the Finite, which they characterize as Visible. By thus identifying the Absolute with the Infinite, which is a universal indefinite principle, the possibility is excluded of obtaining any statement of Absolute Law, any definite conception of Absolute Creating Cause, or any recognition of an Infinite, and thus Vital, ground for Creation; and Philosophy is confined to a knowledge of phenomenal appearances and relationships, which are discordant, deceptive, and the opposite of what they seem; so that neither truth nor consistency is possible for it. By thus identifying Creation with the Finite, the possibility is excluded of recognizing this principle as one of the two Universal Causes of all Existence, or Definite Being; both of which causes, together with the manner in which they become united in production, must be conceived before a single phenomenon can really be compre AS ABSOLUTE SCIENCE, FOUNDED IN The Universal Laws of Being, AND INCLUDING ONTOLOGY, THEOLOGY, AND PSYCHOLOGY MADE ONE, AS SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. By E. L. & A. L. FROTHINGHAM. "ABSOLUTE SCIENCE is the pure self-consciousness of the Reason,- -the conviction that it has of itself,-which assures to every special science its value and right import, and is at the same time versed in them all, and combines into a whole their various branches. Its object is the eternal truth, the unchangeable, unborn, imperishable, of which all that can be truly said is, that IT IS. This eternal and unchangeable Being we call God."-PLATO. |