40 HEREDITY. 



logically put more into your conclusions than you 

 have in your premises ; but it is beyond all contro- 

 versy that the experience of myself and of the race 

 has been finite. A little while ago there was no life 

 on the planet. That principle of life which has cul- 

 minated in me has not had experience beyond the 

 North Star. But we have some convictions that 

 have a far wider range than the circuit of the polar 

 light. Stuart Mill does not deny that we are bound 

 to believe, or incited by our organism to have confi- 

 dence, that every change must have a cause beyond 

 the North Star, as well as on the earth. We feel 

 very sure that two straight lines cannot enclose a 

 space in the sun any more than they can on Beacon 

 Hill. We have entire confidence that sin in the 

 Pleiades, just as here, can be the quality of only 

 voluntary action. We believe that necessary truths, 

 self-evident propositions, hold good for all time and 

 all space. With no sense that we are doing any 

 thing audacious, we sweep self-evident truths through 

 the whole extent of the infinities and the eternities, 

 and feel as sure of their truth beyond the range of 

 our experience as we are inside the range. 



Thus far there is no dispute. All that the materi- 

 alistic school sa}*s in reply is, that convictions which 

 outrun experience are illusions. Goethe said, and it 

 is the keenest speech Mephistophelcs ever made, 

 "Whom God deceives is well deceived." It is as- 

 sumed that our convictions, which outrun experience, 

 are the result of illusions, represent no outward re- 

 ality, might have been different had our environment 



