But Professor Nicolas has well said, that "while it is certain we cannot know things but by the notions which we have of them, and a certain parallelism may thus be established between _what exists_ and _what we think_ of that which exists, yet from this to the _identity of being and thought_, such as Pantheism requires, there is a vast distance, and we have no ground for believing that the _logical relations_ of our ideas are identical with the _real relations_ of beings.

Speculative Pantheism is wholly built on this assumption.

It describes the relations of being according to the logical relations of our thought; and it takes _logic_ for a kind of _metaphysic_.

It confounds the laws of thought with the laws of being.

It seeks to solve the question, What is the first Being, and what are its relations to other beings?
That Being must necessarily be the condition of all other beings, and must virtually contain them all; nay, it must be capable of becoming all things.