r 



14 FACTS AND FANCIES 



mere consciousness of existence necessarily 

 links itself with a future — nay, unending — exist- 

 ence, and that any being with this conscious- 

 ness of futurity must have at least a religion 

 of hope and fear. In this we find an intelli- 

 gible reason for the universality of religious 

 ideas in relation to a future life. Even where 

 this leads to beliefs that may be called super- 

 stitious, it is more reasonable than Agnosticism ; 

 for it is surely natural that a being inscrutable 

 by himself should be led to believe in the ex- 

 istence of other things equally inscrutable, but 

 apparendy related to himself. 



But the thinking " I " dwells in the midst of 

 what we term external objects. In a certain 

 sense it treats the parts of its own bodily or- 

 ganism as if they were things external to it, 

 speaking of " my hand," " my head," as if they 

 were its property. But there are things prac- 

 tically infinite beyond the organism itself. We 

 call them objects or things, but they are only 

 appearances ; and we know only their relations 

 to ourselves and to each other. Their essence, 

 if xhzj have any, is inscrutable. We say that 

 the appearances indicate matter and energy, 

 but what these are essentially we know not 

 We reduce matter to atoms, but it is impossible 



