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find no solution, is to forsake the light for darkness, is to employ exposition with a loss of expository power.

Nor are formulae of thought which are inadequate, in a limited sense false, unserviceable, if their deficiencies are clearly seen by the mind that uses them. The expressions, infinite power, infinite wisdom, infinite goodness, contain as statements two things: the qualities indicated by the nouns, power, wisdom, goodness; and their unlimited degree, pointed out by the adjective, infinite. Our ideas of the first may gain in precision and clearness without affecting the applicability of the adjective which sweeps away their limits. We may inquire experimentally into the nature and forms of power, and yet well understand that these precise manifestations are swallowed up in, included under, infinite power. We thus use in mathematics the first term of an infinite series to define and represent the remainder; or we make the rule for the area of an inscribed polygon that of the enclosing circle, on the ground of the constant approximation of the one surface to the other with each increase of the number of sides. Yet the one never absolutely conforms to the other. The intellectual formula for the infinite is, This and more. The noun gives that which is to be expanded, the adjective, the law of its expansion. The this of the formula gives room for inquiry and growth, the more cuts us off from regarding a part as the whole. This is a movement of thought practically simple and safe; no more inexplicable, no more dangerous than the use of suppositions in mathematics which reach toward the exact truth without finally covering it, which put one thing for another on the ground of constant approximation. Conceptions are habitually employed in mathematics which are inconceivable. We regard circles as perfect, yet the description of a perfect circle is to the imagination an impossible task, for the same reason that it is to the senses. Start