THE SUPERNATURAL. 33 



which they endeavour to account. And what is 

 that fact ? It is one which belongs to the world 

 of Mind, not to the world of Matter. When Pro- 

 fessor Owen tells us, for example, that certain 

 jointed bones in the Whale's paddle are the 

 same bones which in the Mole enable it to 

 burrow, which in the Bat enable it to fly, and in 

 Man constitute his hand with all its wealth of 

 functions, he does not mean that physically and 

 actually they are the same bones, nor that they 

 have the same uses, nor that they ever have 

 been, or ever can be, transferable from one kind 

 of animal to another. He means that in a purely 

 ideal or mental conception of the Plan of all Ver- 

 tebrate skeletons, these bones occupy the same 

 relative place — relative, that is, not to origin or 

 use, but to the Plan or conception of that skele- 

 ton as a whole. 



Here the Supermaterial, and in this sense 

 the Supernatural, element, — that is to say, the 

 ideal conformity and unity of conception, is the 

 one unquestionable fact, in which we recognise 

 directly the working of a Mind with which our 



own has very near relations. Here, as elsewhere, 



c 



