6 



Jesus Christ, coined the term of reproach 

 "Christian," now fortunately transmuted 

 into one glorious to humanity. 



As a further illustration of the 

 common illusions related to word-symbols, 

 let us examine the illusory conceptions so 

 frequently held by many persons with 

 regard to the use of the terms Matter and 

 Mind. The illusion to such persons is, 

 that we know directly a substance of 

 matter as distinct from mind. And again 

 further it is conceived by such persons 

 that matter, in itself, is dead, inert, 

 distinct from, and less mysteriously con- 

 stituted than that part of mental pheno- 

 mena to which they restrict the term mind. 



This is a common fungoid illusion. 

 The cultured thinker knows and can 

 demonstrate logically that the substance 

 of matter is a hypothesis of the mind to 

 account for certain of the mental concepts 

 chiefly related to direct primary im- 

 pressions of sight, touch, and muscular 

 effort. It can be demonstrated to minds 

 sufficiently developed to receive such de- 

 monstration that all our concepts — 

 whether relating to form, color, space, 

 time, resistance, opacity, transparency, 

 ■smell, heat, cold, hunger, thirst, weari- 

 ness, memory, mental introspection, self, 

 not self ; in a word, all sensations are 

 mental. In the words of an able ex- 

 positor (Huxley) immediate knowledge is 

 confined to states of consciousness, or, in 

 other words, to the phenomena of mind. 

 Knowhdge of the physical world, or of 

 one's own bo3y, and of objects external to 

 it, is a system of beliefs, or judgments, 

 based on the sensations. The term 

 " self " is applied not only to the series 

 of mental phenomena, which constitute 

 the egot but to the fragment of the 

 physical world, which is their constant 

 concomitant. The corporeal self, there- 

 fore, is part of the ?io)i-ef/o, and is objective 

 in relation to the ego as subject. 



Elsewhere the same able expositor 

 states clearly, "that if we possessed no 

 sensations but those of smell we should 

 be unable to conceive a material sub- 

 stance. We might have a conception of 

 time, but could have none of extension, 

 or resistance, or of motion ; and without 

 the three latter conceptions, no idea of 

 matter could be formed." 



It may be conceived, therefore, that the 

 only knowledge we consciously possess, 



directly or indirectly, is purely mental. 

 One portion we call external perception; 

 other parts (including feeling, judgment, 

 memory, dream, delirium, illusion — all 

 parts of one whole) purely subjective, and 

 equally mysterious. The mind tends to 

 infer, ejectively, its impressions, as 

 symbolic of a mysterious objective, some- 

 thing external to it. That is all. 



The yEolian harp, if endowed with the 

 sense of hearing only, and so limited to 

 the range of its own chord sounds, would 

 conceive its own cliord, objectively, as 

 external to itself. It would tend to seek 

 external to itself the exact origin and idea 

 of its own specific sounds. It could not 

 dream, as the objective cause of its own 

 subjective chord sounds, the gentle 

 vibrating breeze, except in the manner of 

 some iEoIian harp sound. 



THE COMMON ILLUSION THAT MEN OF CUL- 

 TURE AND SCIENCE HAVE A SPECIAL 

 TENDENCY TO BE SCEPTICAL AS REGARDS 

 TRUTH. 



This may be regarded as a type of the 

 many fungoid illusions which naturally 

 arise in the prejudiced and antagonistic 

 minds of the slothful and ignorant. 



Lovers of ease favor conceptions which 

 involve no trouble of mind. To hold the 

 mind in suspense when in doubt, and 

 when immediate action is not imperative? 

 to sift the grain of wheat from the asso- 

 ciated chaff ; to qualify the observation 

 with the ascertained knowleoge of one's 

 personal equation of error ; to seek 

 truth with a single eye in scorn 

 of cowardly fears regarding possible 

 consequences to one's self ; to suffer 

 misunderstood the mental pain of transi- 

 tion of thought due to the unequal growth 

 and change of the intellect and one's 

 personal clinging ideals and sympathies, 

 are matters which are no more than the 

 sound of words to the indolent mind, 

 whose faith, too often, is a mere accident 

 of time and place. The indolent mind is 

 irritated by complexity, and insists upon 

 the enjoyment of simplicity, even though 

 It should be artificially created by the 

 mutilation of valuable complex truths. 



It is not here maintained that the 

 earnest enquiring mind is not advantaged 

 at times to desire when wearied a some- 

 what similar refuge. But to the latter it 

 is consciously sought, and is the well- 

 earned repose after the strain of mental 



