Collected Works (Vol. II)

TIME 279 7@:c¢::¢:a—an infinite process. The final factor is always unknowable—yet it is the one thing known. Afyst. And because it is always present, therefore it is unkenned. Scept. We are now nearer Spencer than appeared. For the fact that it must be there, unchanging in function, while con- sciousness persists, gives the idea of a definite substratum to subserve that function. Myst. I cannot but agree; and I would further observe that when, in Dhyana, it ceases to examine, and apperceives, the ‘‘ relative eternity,’ z.¢., the intense vividness of the phenomenon gives us a further argu- ment in favour of its permanence. Scept. But that it should persist after death is a question which we should leave physiology to answer, as much as the obvious question whether sight and taste persist. And the answer is unhesitatingly ‘* No.” Afyst. Yet the mystic may still reply that the association of consciousness with matter is as incredible as the contrary conception. Cause and effect, he will say, are if anything less likely (@ prtorz) than concomitance or casuality. Even occasionalism is no more improbable than that the material should have a manifestly immaterial function. Scept, Yet it is so! Myst. Ah! would it serve to reply that it is so! Butno! the materialistic position, fully allowed, is an admission of spirit... They must conceive spirit and matter both as un- knowable, as irresolvable, like x and y in a single equation (whose counterpart we seek in Dhyana), so that we may eternally evolve 1 Maudsley, ‘‘ Physiology of Mind,” asks why it should be more unlikely that consciousness should be a function of matter than that pain should be of nervous tissue. True. So also Huxley extended the meaning of ‘‘nature”’ to include the ‘‘ supernatural "' in order to deny the supernatural. So also I (maintaining that darkness only exists) meet the cavil of the people who insist on the separate existence of light by showing that light is, after all, merely a sub-section of one kind of darkness.--A: C. This note !s of course ironical, values for either, but always in terms of the other. Scept, Just so we agreed lately about subject and object. Alyst. It is another form of the same Protean problem. Scept, Haeckel even insists upon this in his arrogant way. Myst. Huxley, at once the most and the least sceptical of philosophers, urges it. There is only one methed of investigating this matter. Reason is bankrupt; not only Mansel the Christian but Hume the Agnostic has seen it. Scept. We all see it. The Bank being broken, we do not put what little we have saved into the wildcat stock Iaith, as Mansel counsels us; but add little to httle, and hoard it in the old: stocking of Science. Myst. Well if no holes! Scept. We expect little, even if we hope for much. Weare pretty safe; ‘tis the plodding ass that is Science, and the fat priest rides us still. Myst. We offer you a Bank, where your intellectual coin will breed a thousandfold. Scept. What security do you offer? Once bit, twice shy ; especially as your business is known to be patronised by some very shady customers. ) Myst. Do you offer to stop my mouth with security? We give you all you can wish. Let Science keep the books! Isay it in our own interest ; the slovenly system that has prevailed hitherto has resuited in serious losses to the shareholders. One of our best cashiers, Christ, went off and left mere verbal messages, and those only too vague, as to the business that passed through his hands. Too many of our most brilliant research staff keep their processes secret, and so not only incur the suspicion of quackery, but leave the world no wiser for their work. Others abuse their position as directors to further the ends of other companies not even allied to the parent firm: as when Mohammed, the illuminated of Allah, lent his spiritual force to bolster-up the literal