Prof. Ernst HaecTcel. 51 



man's position respecting consciousness as a temporary phase of being, 

 causally correlated with brain changes, positively implies the miracle 

 of creation and opposes the doctrine of natural evolution. The physi- 

 cal facts of extension, motion, and time involved in the molecular or 

 functional activities of the brain can by no possible conjuring be con- 

 ceived of in terms of consciousness. Between the two series of pro- 

 cesses there is an impassable gulf in thought. No thinkable arrange- 

 ments of the former can enable us to conceive the latter as being 

 caused thereby. An unthinkable proposition is a false proposition, if 

 we can place any reliance on i-eason. He wants us to believe that 

 when matter and motion are properly arranged together in the brain, 

 and played upon by the changes of the external world, by some 

 " presto, change " process, we get mind ; and yet he holds that neither 

 matter nor motion contains any distinctly psychic elements when apart 

 or combined in any other manner than in the brain. His statement is 

 exactly equivalent to saying that by certain arrangements of the parti- 

 cles of two mountains they could be set side by side without a valley 

 between. We know that Nature changes her form incessantly, but we 

 have no evidence that she ever creates anything new. The substance, 

 time, space, motion, and consciousness of things may assume endless 

 guises, but we have no reason for supposing an increase or diminution 

 in quantity of either. Modes of consciousness, like modes of motion, 

 may change, but both, so far as we know, persist everlastingly in some 

 form ; at least, such is the logical conclusion of the evolutionist. 

 When Mr. Wakeman tells us that there is no room anywhere in the 

 universe for a god or a sisook, he arrogantly assumes knowledge 

 which man neither does nor ever can possess. What can a finit 

 creature with finite knowledge ever know about the possibilities of the 

 infinite ? Has he grasped every fact of nature to enable liim to tell 

 whether his stupendous assumption does or does not agree with them ? 

 A more modest man might make his statement as a mere unverified 

 belief, for which he alone is responsible, but to put it forward as 

 established truth is preposterous. We know nothing of the universe 

 as it exists ai)art from our own consciousness, which i.-: finite and lim- 

 ited in its modes of activity. Our knowledge is necessarily limited to 

 the narrow range of our experience. What we know, therefore, is in 

 ourselves. Wo can know the external universe only symbolically. 

 As well might the eyeless worm try to picture the world as we see it, 

 as we to picture the actual totality of conditions of the Universal Being 

 in which we are incessantly enveloped. 



