ON THE UNREASONABLENESS OV AGNOSTICISM. ();> 



and all the subsequent motions of the organism. We are here dealing with 

 mechanical problems, which are mentally presentable. But we can form no 

 picture of the process whereby consciousness emerges, either as a necessary 

 link, or as an accidental by-product, of this series of actions. The reverse 

 process of the production of motion by consciousness is equally unpresentable 

 to the mind. We are here, in fact, on the boundary line of the intellect, 

 where the ordinary canons of science fail to extricate us from difficulty." 



And Professor Huxley iu liis Lay Sermons says : — 



" The man of science, who, forgetting the limits of philosophical inquiry, 

 slides from these formulae— and symbols into what is commonly understood 

 by Materialism, seems to me to place himself on a level with the mathema- 

 tician who should mistake the x's and y's with which he works his problems 

 for real entities, and with this further disadvantage, as compared with the 

 mathematician, that the blunders of the latter are of no practical con- 

 sequence, while the error of systematic Materialism may paralyse the 

 energies and destroy the beauty of a life." • 



If, then, no effort enables us to travel from one to the other, 

 it is clear that no effort can enable us to think that one ori- 

 ginated the other. Mind only, we are forced to think, could 

 originate mind; matter only change into different forms of 

 matter. Now, as the originating mind was the cause of our 

 being, our orvii sense of 'pcrsonaliiij enables us to know that 

 God is, and that He is the Great Intelligence to whom we as 

 intelligent beings should render homage. 



Second Proposition. — If man uses Jtis oivn inteUigence in Jtis 

 study of nature, he tvill discover that matter in its qualities and 

 comhinafions is stamped with the seal of inteUigence. Now, as 

 intelligence is one of the attributes of mind, and as mind is 

 an attribute of personality, wo see in matter the footprints of 

 a Personal God. 



It will be easy to show that the laws which govern in- 

 animate nature, and the organisation which characterises all 

 living things and sentient beings, are each and all stamped 

 with the unmistakable seal of intelligence, and in these we 

 say we can learn something of God, and therefore know Him. 

 A few examples must suffice : — 



1. In the arrantjements for the prod^tction of the seasons we 

 can recognise the footprints of God. In consequence of the 

 axis of the earth being inclined twenty-two and a half degrees 

 out of the perpendicular, both poles are brought opposite the 

 sun once in every complete revolution round that orb, and 

 hence the alternation of seasons. Winter, spring, summer, 

 and autumn are secured. If the axis had been either per- 

 pendicular or horizontal to its orbit, then there would have 



