INTRODUCTORY, 27 



the reason. Nothing can be imagined by us which has 

 not been directly or indirectly experienced by our 

 sensitive faculty; but many "things may be conceived 

 of which have never been thus experienced,* and our 

 inability to " imagine " anything should be no bar to our 

 accepting it as true if reason shows that it necessarily or 

 most probably is such. 



Mr. Wallace, in his recent work,t has well pointed 

 out the impossibility of the mathematical, musical, and 

 artistic faculties having been developed by the action 

 of " Natural Selection," and (as before said) has also 

 insisted upon the necessity of a " new cause or power " 

 having " come into action " at the origin of life and 

 sensitivity, as well as at the origin, of man himself. 



But if such a new mode of action — an action different 

 in kind — is to be admitted as having occurred once, 

 e.g.^ at the origin of life, why should not new kinds of 

 action and new causes occur several or very many 

 times — or even occur constantly and repeatedly t 



If once \hQ possibility of such a thing is demonstrated 

 by but a single case of its actual occurrence, new 

 origins and actions not only cease to be improbable, 

 but their probability is thereby established. 



Mr. Wallace % also agrees with us § in affirming the 

 active agency of immaterial principles in bringing about 

 the phenomena of nature, organic and inorganic. But 

 if the necessary intervention of an intelligent, immaterial 

 agency be accepted to account for the origin of any part 



* As to this, see " On Truth," pp. 1 1 i-i 13, 41 1. 



t " Darwinism," pp. 461-476. % Ibid., p. 476. 



§ See " On Truth," pp. 507-510. 



