332 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



latest utterance. He tells us, * " The theory of evolution encour- 

 ages no millennial anticipations." This is true, indeed ; and 

 though the world's existence may seem long when measured by 

 the span of a human life, it is but " a flash in the pan " compared 

 with the infinite ages. And if we suppose the cosmic process to 

 continue indefinitely, and suns with their attendant planets so to 

 pulsate into and from separate existence, yet it promises nothing 

 for all mankind but absolute annihilation and utter nothingness. 

 The Oxford lecturer, however, discoursing on truly "vain 

 philosophy," predicts a mere recurrence of pulsations for the best 

 human thought. Its modern form, he tells us f 



is making a fresh start from the base whence Indian and Greek philosophy set 

 out; and, the human mind being very much what it was six and twenty centuries 

 ago, there is no ground for wonder if it presents indications of a tendency to 

 move along the old lines to the same results. 



The human mind is, of course, very much what it was, but it 

 has now what then it had not the light of Christianity to aid its 

 progress. Its influence has ground and sharpened the weapons of 

 the intellect as they have never been ground and sharpened before. 

 No doubt, the prejudices which have grown up under the teach- 

 ing of Descartes and Locke, which have been intensified by Berke- 

 ley, and which culminated in Hume, will continue to dominate 

 those who can not extricate themselves from that sophistical 

 labyrinth wherein I was once myself imprisoned. The labyrin- 

 thine spell, which makes escape impossible, consists in the words : 

 " We can be supremely certain of nothing but our own present 

 feelings." Hypnotized by this formula, the victims fancy they 

 can not know with certainty their own substantial and con- 

 tinuous existence. But the spell is at once dissolved by the 

 recognition that such feelings are not primary declarations of 

 consciousness, but simply the result of an act of reflection parallel 

 with that which tells us of our own persistent being.J 



The dreams of Brahmanism and Buddhism, Ionian philosophy, 

 Idealism, which may be called the philosophy of Janus,* and the 

 noble inconsistencies of pantheistic Stoicism are all impossible 

 for those who have come to apprehend the truths enshrined in 

 Christian philosophy. 



* [December Monthly, p. 190.] f [December Monthly, p. 186.] 



\ It is, of course, impossible in these pages to draw out the reasons which justify the 

 above assertion. For them the reader is referred to my book On Truth, chapters i, ii, and ix. 



* Because the system can readily be inverted so as to become materialism. Its ma- 

 terialistic face belongs to it as properly as does its idealistic visage. Prof. Huxley says 

 [November Monthly, p. 31], " Granting the premises, I am not aware of any escape from 

 Berkeley's conclusion." Neither am I. But I am no less unaware of any necessity to 

 accept those premises, the truth of which I unhesitatingly deny. 



