IDEALISM AND PREHUMAN EVOLUTION. 



O'-'D 



found too rigid and mechanical, that in the ripeness 

 of time it will put an absolute limit upon spiritual 

 evolution. The time may come when Matter will 

 no longer offer any obstacles to our wishes, and 

 when in sober truth Man will, with a word, precipi- 

 tate a mountain into the sea. Or can it be that a 

 completer harmony of the human with the Divine 

 Will can anticipate the course of social ev6lution, 

 and give to saints and sages a power over Matter 

 which transcends that of ordinary men, and even 

 now enables their faith to move mountains ? Micrht 

 not their power over Matter already rise to the 

 level to be attained in far-distant ages, just as their 

 intellectual and moral development towers above 

 that of the societies in which they dwell ? But 

 whether a belief which has found strong favour at 

 all times and in all countries be well founded, is not 

 a question for a philosopher to decide : it is enough 

 for him to assert that there is nothing inherently 

 absurd in the supposition, and that a will completely 

 congruous with the Divine would needs have a 

 complete control of the m.aterial. 



§ 32. And with this suggestion we must leave 

 the subject and close a chapter which has already 

 been unduly prolonged, by a brief explanation of a 

 difficulty which has often been felt an insuperable 

 obstacle in the way of any idealist view of the 

 material world. 



Granted, it may be said, that Matter is in itself 

 unknowable, that a satisfactory metaphysical account 

 of the world must always explain it in terms of 

 Spirit ; yet how is it that the material world existed, 

 apparently, long before spiritual beings came into 

 existence ? Is not this conclusive proof that the 

 world does not exist in the consciousness of spirits, 



R. ofS. X 



