liave been caused. It is, therefore, eternal. What that inherent 

 power of matter is that hides itself so mysteriously behind the pheno- 

 mena of nature we cannot tell, further than that, being the inherent pro- 

 perty of eternal matter, it also is eternal. This point is the limit of the 

 Tiuman understanding, beyond which it is apparently impossible at 

 present for the mind of man to soar. In the words of Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer, " there is a power behind humanity and behind all things ; a 

 power of which humanity is but a small and fugitive product ; a power 

 which was, in the course of ever-changing manifestations, before 

 Tiumanity was, and will continue through all other manifestations when 

 humanity has ceased to be." This power, of which matter and motion, 

 thought and volition, are but the phenomenal manifestations, and 

 which regulates the varied movements of those myriads of stellar 

 systems interspersed throughout the infinity of space this exhaust- 

 less power of life and energy is to the human mind, as at present 

 constituted, unknowable. Call it Law ; call it Gravity ; call it the 

 Mysterious Unknown ; but call it not God, that word which has 

 brought so much bitter anguish to humanity, and which blighted the 

 beauty of nature, causing hate where love should be, and tears to 

 fall where smiles should gladden the heart of man. Whether or not 

 the mind of man in future ages will be able to lift the veil that at present 

 lies between him and the Great Unknown time alone can tell. 



At present we are at the mercy of an imperfectly-developed nervous 

 organisation, with its five special senses, which, though very far superior 

 to the lowly nervous development of our remote ancestors of millions 

 of centuries back in the history of life, is perfectly inadequate for the 

 solution of the great problem of existence. But a time will probably 

 .arrive in the dim and misty future when other and more important 

 senses will be evolved within the human frame, which may bring man 

 nearer the elucidation of this greatest of all mysteries. Meanwhile let 

 us apply ourselves boldly to the uprooting of the old Upas tree of 

 religious faith that pernicious development of the god-idea that has 

 been the constant blight of all ages, stifling reason by fostering blind 

 faith and gross credulity, robbing the race of all that is noble, manly, 

 and honest, by the propagation of those canker worms, hypocrisy and 

 cant, and retarding the temporal salvation of man by the substitution 

 -of the vain and foolish theory of future rewards and punishments. 



Pr'mhd by Watts & Co., 77, Johnson's Court, Fket Street, London, E.C, 



