184 HEREDITY. 



influence on matter, perhaps we had better assume 

 that the real core of matter is a supersensible reality. 

 What does that long word mean? Something that 

 cannot be reached by the senses. It is above our 

 senses. There cannot be qualities in matter, unless 

 there is something in which the qualities inhere. 

 The soul too has its qualities, and these must have 

 something in which they inhere. That something is 

 immaterial. But what we call immaterial in the 

 soul, and what we call supersensible in matter, may 

 have at the bottom one quality. When, therefore, 

 the soul acts upon matter, or matter upon soul, it 

 may be that the supersensible element in the one 

 and the immaterial in the other are brought into 

 contact. The likeness of the supersensible and the 

 immaterial accounts for the influence of the one 

 upon the other. It is not necessary to suppose that 

 chemical affinities, regarded simply as such, are trans- 

 muted into thought. Lotze rejects, in the name of 

 the scientific method, every form of the mechanical 

 theory that leaves us to conclude, that, when the 

 body is dissolved, the soul is no more. 



Must I venture an illustration to make these 

 abstruse thoughts clear? There is a substratum in 

 soul. There is a substratum in matter. When mat- 

 ter influences matter, the act .is like that which 

 occurs when two gloved hands meet and clasp. It 

 is in one sense the gloves that clasp, and in another 

 only the hands, the living forces beneath. But, 

 when matter and a soul to which the Divine Will 

 has given individuality influence each other, we have 



