26o PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



own statement by confessing to be himself " colour- 

 blind " ! 



For, in the first place, how can we have any visual 

 sensations at all, if there be no objects external to cause 

 it ? We only see them by aid of the light derived from 

 them, and light imtst have a source. 



But, secondly, the structure of the eye, the optic 

 nerve and the brain itself, all being composed of matter, 

 fall under his expression " the world you see," and are 

 therefore nothing but pJiantoms. How can the " visual 

 sensations " themselves, which depend entirely on things 

 which he admits are " uncertain," " phantoms," " dreams " 

 be more certain than these things themselves ? 



Similarly with touch, taste, smell and hearing. They 

 are all only " feelings ". He says " even in forms (as of a 

 book) there is nothing but feeling, nothing but mind or 

 spirit, whichever you like best". "The only thing of 

 which we have any certainty is spirit." 



How Mr. Rix can say this, when his own eyesight 

 habitually deceives him, is incomprehensible. 



But how is it that he can write about " mind " or 

 "spirit" at all ? If a man had no senses he could have 

 no "mind". He would be a blank. His mind and 

 spirit have to thank his senses for their very existence 

 in a practical sense. He certainly could never be a 

 metaphysician or realise the Universe as an Organism. 

 Metaphysics, he tells us, supply the only proof. And 

 that proof arises by mental concepts, that must be, 

 therefore, by means of phantom eyes and phantom ears. 

 How, then, are metaphysicians to be trusted any more 

 than their bodily senses, upon which they primarily 

 depend ? 



Mr. Rix makes no allusion to the theoretical origin 

 of matter from vortex-rings of ether ; about which Prof. 



