APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 221 



and the ecstasy of Plotinus and Porphyry, are phases of 

 that psychical condition, obviously connected with the 

 nervous system and state of health, on which is based 

 the Vedic doctrine of the absorption of the individual 

 into the universal soul. Plotinus taught the devout 

 how to pass into a condition of ecstasy. Porphyry 

 complains of having been only once united to God in 

 eighty-six years, while his master Plotinus had been so 

 united six times in sixty years.* A friend who knew 

 Wordsworth informs me that the poet, in some of his 

 moods, was accustomed to seize hold of an external ob- 

 ject to assure himself of his own bodily existence. As 

 states of consciousness such phenomena have an undis- 

 puted reality, and a substantial identity; but they are 

 connected with the most heterogeneous objective con- 

 ceptions. The subjective experiences are similar, be- 

 cause of the similarity of the underlying organisations. 

 But for those who wish to look beyond the practical 

 facts, there will always remain ample room for specula- 

 tion. Take the argument of the Lucretian introduced 

 in the Belfast Address. As far as I am aware, not one 

 of my assailants has attempted to answer it. Some of 

 them, indeed, rejoice over the ability displayed by 

 Bishop Butler in rolling back the difficulty on his op- 

 ponent; and they even imagine that it is the Bishop's 

 own argument that is there employed. But the rais- 

 ing of a new difficulty does not abolish does not even 

 lessen the old one, and the argument of the Lucretian 

 remains untouched by anything the Bishop has said or 

 can say. 



And here it may be permitted me to add a word to 

 an important controversy now going on: and which 



* I recommend to the reader's particular attention Dr. Dra- 

 per's important work entitled, 'History of the Conflict between 

 Religion and Science ' (Messrs. H. S. King and Co.). 



