212 W. L. COURTNEY, M.A., LL.D., 
best for all scientific as well as practical purposes; and that 
is, that the body or the brain is the “organ” of the mind. 
Provided only we use it in the sense of the Greek term “ organon” ; 
defining “ organ” as the material condition or sine qud non of its 
self-manifestation and communication with the world around it, 
both in material objects and mental personalities. 
Mr. Arruur Bourwoop.—There is one important aspect of the 
question before us which has not been noticed this evening—I 
mean the relation in which it stands to the philosophy of Religion. 
Religion is concerned with the relations between the Divine and 
the human. God and the human soul, these are the two ultimate 
realities which it presents to us, and with the relations between 
which it deals. To-night we are asked to consider questions 
concerning the reality of one of these two related terms, the 
soul, and according as we are or are not able to furnish a 
reasonable account of our belief in the reality of the self—of 
our belief that it actually is something not less real than any 
of the objects around us, and not some merely hypothetical 
existence—shall we be able to lay the foundation of an adequate 
philosophy of religion. 
In the first place, let us ask “ What do we mean by reality ?” 
and “ How do we learn about it?” An abstract definition of 
reality is perhaps impossible, but in answer to both questions, we 
may say that reality is made known to us in and by experience. 
If we could analyse our knowledge—our knowledge, I say, as 
distinguished from our opinions and beliefs—and throw it into 
a series of propositions, we should, I think, find ourselves face to 
face with statements like this, ‘‘I perceive this thing, A,” and in 
the experience or consciousness which these propositions would 
express, we should find our sole ground for affirming the existence 
of anything—the sole basis of our knowledge of reality. The 
two questions I have just mentioned are philosophical rather than 
scientific, and we can seek for the answer to them only in the 
realm of self-consciousness. There, among the primitive data of 
consciousness, we tind revealed the existence of independent but 
related realities belonging to two categories, on the one hand we 
have the perceiving self, on the other, the perceived things. The 
consciousness of reality, whether pertaining to subject or object, 
is ultimate and unanalysable, but that unique experience is the 
only ground we have for affirming the existence of any reality, 
