482 The Possibility of a Suture Life. [October, 
reasoning most ably. They say, ‘‘ We are as much puzzled 
by what takes place in our present body as we can be with 
respect to the spiritual. Thus let us allow that impressions 
are stored up in our brains, which thus form an organ con- 
necting us with the past of the visible universe. Now 
thousands, perhaps even millions, of such impressions pass 
into the same organ, and yet by the operation of our will, 
we can concentrate our recollection upon a certain event, 
and rummage out its details along with its collateral cir- 
cumstances to the exclusion of everything else. But if the 
brain, or something else, plays such a wonderful part in the 
present economy, is it impossible to imagine that the uni- 
verse of the future may have even greater individualising 
powers? Is it not very hazardous to assert this or that 
mode of existence to be impossible in such a wondrous 
whole as we feel sure the universe must be ?” 
This illustration, we urge, is totally beside the question. 
An organism must exist before it can receive and indi- 
vidualise the impressions which occur. But here the organ- 
ism has to be built up by the impressions themselves. Or, 
returning to our former illustration of the photographic 
camera, we know that it, with a duly prepared plate, can 
individualise into distinct images the light-undulations pro- 
ceeding from bodies placed before it; but can we conceive 
of these undulations creating the camera and the plate on 
which they are to be recorded? For such a process we 
can find in the known universe no analogy. What it is 
possible for us to imagine is, we submit, quite unimportant. 
It may, indeed, be ‘‘ very hazardous” to deny the possibility 
of anything. But is not the position of the authors still 
more hazardous? Before expecting our assent they are 
bound to produce some argument far more cogent than 
** why may it not ?” 
But the authors’ entire line of reasoning, touching the 
unseen universe, is based upon doubtful assumptions, and 
is beset with difficulties little less formidable than the one, 
we have just pointed out. Let us return to the fundamen- 
tal fact, or alleged fact, of the small number of stars of low 
magnitudes. The calculation of Struve took for granted 
that the stars are uniformly distributed throughout space. 
This is a fallacy. ‘The heavenly bodies within our range of 
vision belong for the most part to a single group, which 
appears to lie like an oceanic islet in vast starless regions. 
‘The interstellar spaces contain not merely the ether, but inall 
probability diffused gases, which may absorb the light of the 
morg remote stars. The effect of the upper regions of our 
