now \VK SKE. 



183 



rudiment of a t'aruliy. Wc only know that the phenomenon 

 beiran as motion, and that as motion it ended. But beyond — 

 ah, beyond — is an imi)enctrable (hirkness. We emerged from 

 an eternity of ignorance, we end at the brink of an eternity of 

 the unknowable. In the infinitesmally short span between 

 tlK'se two mighty eternities we are permitted to examine 

 into tlu' workings of Nature's hiws. to follow out their rela- 

 tions to each other, and ajiply them, as far as we are able, 

 to the ex[)lanation of the phenomena l)y which we are sur- 

 rounded; but of the origins of these laws we are, as scien- 

 tist.s, in utter ignorance. Wc have not been i)rovided with 

 a power to grasp at even the l)eginning of an idea which 

 would lead us nearer a solution of these problems than we 

 now are. And as at the beginning so at the end. There 

 are some things which are not only unknown but unknow- 

 able. It is utterly impossible that we can ever know how 

 light waves or sound waves are converted by the material 

 organ of the brain into consciousness and thought. That 

 this is accomi>lishod by the brain we know, and that it is 

 throuuh a change in its molecular structure admits hardly 

 of a doubt, but there we must pause. We have reached the 

 limits of our {possible knowledge, and from any attempt at 

 penetrating the darkness beyond even the imagination 

 shrinks, overwhelmed by the consciousness of its utter 

 powerlessness and incapacity. 



And now, ladies and gentlemen, we have tinished all we 

 designed to tell you of what we know of one of the most 

 important and wonderful faculties with which we are en- 

 dowed, and we have also given you some concei)tion of the 

 amount we do not know, and from the very nature of things 

 can never know. This latter, as compared with the former, 

 is inmiense, but when we come to consider how wonderful 

 and surprisingly beautiful it all is, we can only be glad that 

 we are permitted to know and enjoy as much actual knowl- 

 edge as we do. I could have confmod myself, in these re- 

 marks, to a description and experimental demonstration of 

 some of the beautiful laws of light and vision which science 

 has unraveled out of the eternal mv.sterv, and we could have 



