200 WISCONSIN" ACADEMY SCIENCES, ARTS, AND LETTERS. 



forces — and if we assume a Supreme Intelligence, then the object 

 of creation, if discoverable at all, is discoverable by man, or at least 

 it is complete in him. But if, taking the other view, we look upon 

 man as but a link iu the chain of being — if we conceive of the 

 forces of nature which in the past have evolved a higher type of 

 niitter as working for the same end to-day, our thoughts cease to 

 dwell upon the present, and project themselves into a distant, but 

 ever-perfecting future. The imperfections which surround us and 

 which are the stumbling-blocks in the way to our conception of a 

 perfect God, fade out, in the evolving ages, and the mind rests in 

 the thought of a coming time when the divine idea shall be accom- 

 plished and when the mysteries which now shroud all things shall 

 have passed away and the " glory of the Lord" shall be revealed. 



Prof. Carpenter admits an evolu cion of matter; he even admits that 

 man is the highest product of evolution; he believes that the su- 

 preme intelligence existed alone in his own consciousness, and that 

 before he could exist in any other consciousness he must seek an 

 objective material medium through which to express himself. If 

 the supreme intelligence is purely subjective, as Dr. Carpenter 

 claims, then anything external to and apart from that intelligence 

 must be objective. Man, then, whether considered as matter or 

 mind, is objective. The object of creation, according to Dr. Car- 

 penter, is to communicate subjectivity to subjectivity through ob- 

 jectivity, or in other words the divine conceptions to consciousness 

 through matter. But human consciousness, as we have just seen, 

 is objective to the divine consciousness; hence, the object of crea- 

 tion is not to communicate subjectivity to subjectivity, but subjec- 

 tivity to objectivity through objectivity, which is nothing more 

 than saying that man is but one of the nicer touches from the hand 

 of the painter; one of the finishing strokes from the hand of the 

 sculptor; one of the pages from the book of the thinker. God is 

 the artist, the universe, the canvas, and man but a pigment which, 

 with other material, goes to further the divine conception. 



If matter is objective and the expression of thought, then man, 

 being matter, is objective and an expression of thought. If he is 

 an expression of thought he stands in the same relation to the su- 

 preme intelligence that any expression of thought stands. Every 

 object in nature, on Dr. Carpenter's hypothesis, is an expression of 

 thought. Man, then, bears to the supreme intelligence the same 



