CHAP. XIII.] CONSEQUENCES. 391 



its present condition, it is a multiple of such units, variously modified.&quot; 

 p. 140. 



Yet who can doubt that in the living body there is a latent, 

 active principle wanting in the recent corpse, though com 

 posed of the same identical masses of nucleated protoplasm ? 



The Professor has of late become the expositor of the 

 idealist philosophy, according to which mental phenomena 

 are to each individual most unquestionably the primary 

 objects of knowledge, and yet he tells us &quot;it is obvious 

 that our knowledge of what we call the material world, is. 

 to begin with, at least as certain and definite as that of the 

 spiritual world &quot; (p. 155). And more recently * he has said, 

 as to &quot;psychoses&quot; and &quot;neuroses,&quot; &quot; The right view is that 

 they are connected together in the relation of cause and 

 effect, psychoses being secondary, and following on neuroses !&quot; 



We next meet with the following passage : 



&quot; If a man asks me what the politics of the inhabitants of the moon 

 are, and I reply that I do not know ; that neither I, nor any one else, 

 have any means of knowing ; and that, under these circumstances, I 

 decline to trouble myself about the subject at all ... in replying thus, 

 I conceive that I am simply honest and truthful, and show a proper 

 regard for the economy of time. So Hume s strong and subtle intellect 

 takes up a great many problems about which we are naturally curious, 

 arid shows us that they are essentially questions of lunar politics, in 

 their essence incapable of being answered, and therefore not worth the 

 attention of men who have work to do in the world.&quot; p. 158. 



He then quotes Hume saying : 



&quot; If we take in hand any volume of divinity, or school metaphysics, 

 for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning 

 quantity or number ? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning 

 concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the 

 flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.&quot; p. 159. 



Professor Huxley adds : 



&quot; Permit me to enforce this most wise advice. Why trouble ourselves 

 about matters of which, however important they may be, we do know 

 nothing, and can know nothing ? &quot; p. 159. 



* In his last lecture at the Finsbury Institution, given in the winter of 

 1872. 



