EDITOR'S TABLE. 



271 



" the predicate of reality can be 

 ascribed only to energy." 



Since it is generally admitted that, 

 whatever the unknown reality may 

 be, our conception of energy is a 

 projection into the external world 

 of the feeling of resistance and eilort 

 which accompanies our own volun- 

 tary actions, the question whether 

 "the predicate of reality can be as- 

 cribed to energy" leads us at once 

 to the preliminary question whether 

 volition is real or phenomenal. If 

 the interminable discussion on the 

 freedom of the will, which has ex- 

 ercised the most acute intellects of 

 our race for many centuries, teaches 

 anything, it teaches that science is 

 not yet able to answer the question 

 whether the "predicate of reality " is 

 or is not to be ascribed to volition ; 

 and that, in the present state of our 

 knowledge of Natui'e, Ostwald's sub- 

 stitute for materialism is no better 

 and no worse than the system which 

 he seeks to displace and supplant. 



THOSE BLESSED X RAYS. 



We were quite prepared for it, as 

 we mentioned last month ; so it was no 

 surprise to us to read the following in 

 The Herald and Presbyter of a recent 

 date, the reference therein being to 

 Rontgen's discovery : "For one thing, 

 it corroborates, so far as any material 

 experiment can, Paul's doctrine of 

 the spiritual body as now existing in 

 man. It proves, as far as any experi- 

 ment can prove, that a truer body, a 

 body of which the phenomenal body 

 is but the clothing, may now reside 

 within us, and which (sic) awaits the 

 moment of its unclothing, which we 

 call death, to set it free." We are 

 further told in the same article that 

 the discovery in question " makes 

 clear to the unscientific mind what 

 Stuart (sic) and Tait announced, that 

 matter in one state has no power to 

 exclude niatter in another and more 



refined state," and that we must 

 therefore now be prepared to believe 

 " that two particles of matter can and 

 do occupy the same space at the same 

 time." 



A very few remarks on this piece 

 of special pleading must suflRce on 

 the present occasion. 



1. " Paul's doctrine of the spiritual 

 body." Why this doctrine should be 

 called Paul's it is hard to understand, 

 seeing that it is encountered in every 

 quarter of the globe among nations 

 and tribes of almost every grade of 

 civilization. In the Odyssey Ulysses 

 talks to the "spiritual body" of 

 Achilles in the nether world, a body 

 which was " set free '' when the nat- 

 ural body of the hero was slain. It 

 is difficult, therefoi'e, to see why Paul 

 rather than Homer should be men- 

 tioned as having his "doctrine'' con- 

 firmed by the discovery of the X rays. 



2. Paul's doctrine, however, was 

 not that there may be a spiritual body 

 within — but, after all, why within 

 more than itithout f — the natural 

 body, but that there is such a body ; 

 whereas Rontgen. according even to 

 the writer we are quoting, only proves 

 that there may be one. A thousand 

 proofs, however, that a thing may be 

 does not advance us one whit toward 

 proving that it is. Moreover, Eont- 

 gen's discovery does not point any 

 more in the direction of a spiritual 

 body within our bodies than it does 

 in the direction of a spiritual body 

 within cats, or dogs, or sheep, or trees, 

 or stones. 



3. Strictly speaking, Rontgen's 

 discovery proves nothing about 

 bodies in general that has not been 

 known for centuries. That light can 

 pass through solid bodies even of 

 great thickness and density has been 

 the common experience of mankind 

 ever since the first transparent sub- 

 stance was discovered. Rontgen has 

 merely discovered that substances 

 which are not penetrable by ordinary 



