12 A THEORY OP LIFE DEDUCED 



through which we become cognizant of the external world. 

 Bat the mind, as we saw, has its limitations as well as 

 its powers. Whether considering problems of mind or 

 of matter, we are forced to the conclusion that the genesis 

 and substance of things are forever unknowable, that only 

 phenomena and their relations are knowable, and that even 

 such knowledge as it is possible for us to acquire is relative 

 and not absolute truth ; that is, we know what we know 

 as we know it because we are what we are. To others 

 differently constituted things are doubtless differently 

 known. Now mark the important consequences that follow. 

 What in the early part of this essay we distinguished 

 as the terrestrial environment and the extra-terrestrial 

 environment now appears to us each in two distinct forms, 

 represented respectively by their unknowable and their 

 knowable aspects. In other words, both the terrestrial 

 environment and the extra-terrestrial environment have 

 each an unknowable and a knowable side. The unknow- 

 able aspects of this dual environment reduced to their 

 lowest terms stand for the impenetrable mystery in which 

 the genesis and substance of things are shrouded ; and 

 although this mystery is beyond the possibility of a solution, 

 it nevertheless persists in obtruding itself on conscious- 

 ness is just as much a part of the external influences 

 that affect consciousness as is the kuowable aspect of 

 our environment. Hence when contemplating the grand 

 scheme of the universe there are excited within us two 

 sets of activities ; one responding to the unknowable and 

 mysterious aspect of our environment; the other to its 

 knowable manifestations. Or to express ourselves from a 

 point of view which it was the main object of the fore- 

 going remarks to emphasize, we have now discovered a 

 permanent basis for religion and for science. And here 



