340 



FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 



science" or a new " theosophy." The "measure of a 

 man " is the basis of human knowledge, and whatever 

 can not be brought to this measure is 

 no part of knowledge. In converse 

 fashion Balfour speaks of the unknown 

 in terms of the known, of the infinite in terms of hu- 

 man experience. This gives to his positive " founda- 

 tions of belief " an appearance of reality as fallacious as 

 the unreality he assigns to the foundations of science. 

 This appearance of reality is the base of Haeckel's 

 sneer at the current conception of the Divine Being as a 

 "gaseous vertebrate." 



It is perfectly easy for science to distinguish be- 

 tween subjective and objective nerve conditions. It 



can separate those produced by subiec- 

 Nature of sanity. . J , J 



tive nervous derangements, or by con- 

 ditions already passed, from those which are contempo- 

 raneous impressions of external things. It is perfectly 

 easy for common sense to do the same. To be able to 

 do so is the essence of sanity. The test of sanity is its 

 liveableness, for insanity is death. The "borderland of 

 spirit," of which we hear so much of late the land 

 where subjective and objective creations jostle each 

 other at will is the borderland of death. The con- 

 tinued existence of animals and men is based on the 

 adequacy of their sensations and the veracity of their 

 actions. . The existence of any creature is in general 

 proof of the sanity of its ancestry, or at least of the 

 sanity of those who controlled the actions of its an- 

 cestors. 



This veracity is gauged by the degree of coincidence 

 of subjective impressions and objective truth. He who 

 makes a fool's paradise or a fool's hell of the world 

 about him is not allowed to live in it. This fact in all 

 its bearings must stand as a proof that the universe is 



