12 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



its steps separated from each other by just appreciable 

 intervals ; then we have but to suppose the period 

 needed for our nervous activity to be slightly increased, 

 and it would necessarily follow we could no longer 

 perceive the intervals, and the supposed action would 

 seem to be continuous — as does that of the hour-hand 

 of a clock. Let us next assume that a really interrupted 

 action is so slow that we cannot detect any separate 

 intervals and acts in its course ; we have but to suppose 

 the rapidity of our nervous activity increased, and we 

 should be able to clearly perceive them. So much for 

 continuity as to conditions of succession. As to the con- 

 tinuity of conditions of simultaneous existence, it is 

 notorious that the microscope is continually showing us 

 the existence of intervals and interruptions in what, to 

 our unaided senses, appears continuous. It is also 

 notorious that the universal presence of intervals and a 

 perpetual absence of continuity, is set forth as the real 

 condition of material existence by those thinkers who 

 are most earnest in denying the existence of an interval 

 between human and brute intelligence — namely, by all 

 those who uphold the mechanical theory of the universe. 

 For they believe that everything we know, even every 

 gas, is made up of a cluster of more or less widely 

 separated molecules and atoms. 



But that absolute interruptions and really instan- 

 taneous actions do take place on all sides of us in nature, 

 is indisputable. Such is the case in every act of impreg- 

 nation, wherein there is, and must be, an instant before 

 and an instant after the contact of the ultimate sexual 

 elements. We have again, at a later reproductive stage. 



