17 



exists in my mind. I do not necessarily see the same thing 

 of the same colour as another man. Two friends of mine 

 cannot distinguish green from red. A respectable Quaker 

 is stated to have horrified his wife by donning a bottle- 

 green coat and presenting her with a lovely scarlet merino, 

 under the impression that both were a quiet drab. It is clear 

 that the sense of colour is in the mind. But it is equally 

 indisputable that different colours are due to different 

 external causes. It is an elementary proposition in psych- 

 ology that we have no reason to suppose that things in 

 themselves are what they to appear to be. To take another 

 example, I have every reason to conclude that some lower 

 animals posesss senses of which I do not possess the faintest 

 rudiment. It is clear that the reality which corresponds to 

 the external world cannot be as we perceive it. "We 

 symbolyse the universe in our thought. "What we per- 

 ceive corresj)onds to that which is, in the same sense that 

 my written name corresponds to me. It stands for me ; it 

 represents me. 



Can we form any conception of what nature really is ? 

 To attempt an answer I shall first ask whether the mind, 

 which symbolises nature, is something supernatural and 

 outside of nature. That there is' a correspondence, abso- 

 lute and invariable, between mind and body may be taken 

 as estabhshed. But I think we may go farther than this. 

 If the body is affected by the mind and the mind by the 

 body, it is impossible to consider the mind as a mystery 

 lying outside the confines of nature. I repeat that now 

 that the indestructibility of what we call matter and the 

 conservation of what we call energy are established, mind 

 cannot be conceived of as altering matter, or as entering 

 into the circuit of the forms of energy, if it differs abso- 

 lutely from that which it affects. And the same irre- 

 sistible conclusion is arrived at when we watch the gradual 

 growth of the individual mind, or review the development 

 of mind in the animal series. The indestructibility of 

 matter and the persistence of energy leave lis no room 

 for an influence outside the closed cu-cuit of the universe. 

 To day scientific thought is only possible on this assump- 

 tion. There is proof of evolution — that is to say, of 

 change and development of state. There is no proof of a 

 non-natural, non-material entity. Speculation is bounded 

 by the confines of nature. And the fact that mind may 

 fall out of personal consciousness without ceasing to be 



B 



