1 8 METAPHYSICS 



constitute the dwelling-place of the Ego secured and 

 protected by their surrounding nuclei and their proper 

 enclosing textures, and encapsuled by the cell protoplasm 

 with its containing wall and become the working neuronic 

 structures of our conscious being, aided by the systemic 

 nervous system, insulated by and encased in its peri-neural 

 sheaths, the neuroglial matrix of particle, cell, and fibre 

 forming the foundation of that dwelling-place, while the 

 great blood circulation, with its innumerable vessels and 

 wonderfully constructed hydraulic machinery, its pre- 

 ceding, digesting, and assorting apparatuses, constituting 

 its buttressing and supports, the related and attached 

 mobile musculature and articulated bony skeleton afford- 

 ing a moving platform for its peregrination of the world 

 around it. 



Here and in all this we can only perceive that the 

 governing principle underlying these material parts can 

 but be immaterial, hence indestructible, and capable of 

 continued existence, and therefore, that this, the only 

 living and governing principle within our human organism, 

 must be for want of another name what has for ages 

 been called our spirit or soul, as distinguished from the 

 purely mental part of our being, with the attributes of 

 immateriality, indestructibility, and consequent immortality. 



Along this path of material enquiry and speculation, we 

 think we can claim to descry, amid the depths of the 

 increasing gloom of failing intellectual sight, faint streaks 

 of the everlasting light, as they fall on the inner sight of 

 the soul through its environment of " clay," its mortal 

 wrappings, and material impedimenta. 



In this region, religion and science may surely and 

 consistently join hands, and mutually acknowledge that 

 there is room, warrant, and necessity for both, in shaping 

 the destiny of the human race, and hastening the advent 

 of that period when all contradictions and friction, inherent 

 in the possession of "a little knowledge," will cease, and 

 merge in the harmony and majesty of revealed, to be 

 revealed, and absolutely perfect, truth. 



In this region, moreover, we may recognise a common 

 ground, whereon the searchers after the truth in all the 

 manifold, and widely divided fields of research, physical 



