292 REV. H. J. CLARKE 
thing I venture to assert without the slightest hesitation: I 
am at a loss even to conceive of a transition from the psychical 
condition of a lower animal to that of man having been effected 
otherwise than by what might be called a new birth or a new 
creation. He has certain distinctive mental characteristics 
which are surely traceable to the seed of some intellect of a 
peculiarly God-like order such as shows him to be of nobler 
lineage than the creatures over which he exercises sway. It 
is no mere difference of degree that we observe in comparing 
the brute soul, even in those specimens which exhibit ex- 
quisitely-developed sensibilities and perceptive powers, with 
the soul which manifests a capacity for thinking of an Author 
of all things finite and temporal, and of a life independent of 
all changes and chances. Yearning’s and anxieties unutterable, 
in thoughts directed towards One who is perceived to have 
had no beginning, and to be the same yesterday, to-day, and 
for ever, are assuredly conceived through no faculty which owes 
its origin to nothing more than growing complexity in the 
inter-relations of appetency with a physical environment. 
An ellipse may be imagined to have its major axis lengthened 
out continuously ad infinitum, while the minor axis remains 
unchanged; but can imagination ever by this process expunge 
it from thought and fill its place with a parabola? Is there a 
possibility of blending the conception of the one with that of 
the other—in other words, of conceiving curves which are 
intermediate between the ellipse and the parabola, and do not 
admit of being sharply defined by either term? When this 
can be done, when the former can be represented as having by 
continuous modification of its axial relations evolved the 
latter, then may we allow it to be possible that the human 
soul has grown imperceptibly out of that which once belonged 
to some inferior animal. 
22. To those whose psychological philosophy is but the interior 
projection and indispensable complement of their physiological 
scheme, I am quite prepared to concede that a fallacy must be 
lurking somewhere in my reasonings, if ever the brain, in 
any of the abnormal states to which it is liable, gives 
evidence of a break-up of personality. But is such evidence 
forthcoming? <A lunatic, it may be, is under the impression 
that he is two individuals. Let us suppose them to be 
historical celebrities, whose characters present points of con- 
trast. If his mental aberration involves corresponding alter- 
nations of character, there may be reason to suspect that 
the two hemispheres of his brain are in different states, and 
that they have been rendered by disease incapable of normal 
concerted action, For character, as manifested in the flesh, 
