Note 28 — Chapter IV · THE IDEAL OF THE WHOLE

To deny such a priori knowledge of the object called God is not to deny that the production of this object is due to constructive principles of human thinking; while, in turn, to assert the functional derivation of the God-idea is not to validate that idea itself as permanent and inexpugnable. It may have owed its origin to a permanent disposition of the mind, and yet be fallible because of the historical conditions under which it arose and the defective data in which it was expressed. By way of illustration we might apply the same reflection to the Ptolemaic astronomy. The mathematical processes by which this astronomy was constructed may be traced to permanent singularities of human thinking, yet the astronomical theory of Ptolemy is not on that account a priori true.