THE CONCEPTION OF THE GREAT REALITY. 



245 



wings vibrating and states the effect of using a large tuning-fork. 

 It is a well known fact that if you produce a very slight vibration 

 with a tuning-fork in close proximity to a spider's web, a vil)ration 

 so feeble that the human ear will scarcely take it in, the spider, 

 nevertheless, hears it, the sense of sound being greater in the lower 

 animals ; in fact, the sense of hearing in the spider I imagine is 

 much more acute than its power of sight. 



The Author. — I have often brought spiders out of their webs 

 by sounding a tuning-fork near them. I believe you taught me how 

 to do it in our earlier days. 



Kev. F. A. Walker. — Spiders that have no webs are much 

 slower in catching their prey than those that work by sound. 

 Spiders that weave a web work by sound, and they hear the 

 vibrations of the wings of an insect, but spiders that do not weave 

 a web work by sight, and in pursuing their prey they frighten the 

 insect. 



[The Chair ^vas then vacated by Mr. Howard and taken by 

 Captain Heath.] 



Mr. Martin Eouse. — I should like to ask the lecturer to kindly 

 re-state the arguments derived from rapidity of hearing and his 

 observations by which he arrives at the conclusion that past, present 

 and future are all one to God. 



The Author. — I drew up five or six conclusions upon this paper 

 which, perhaps, may give you what you want if I may read them. 



Conclusions to he drawn from Paper on " The Conception of the Great 



Reality" 



No. 1. As we gain a knowledge of the Eeality, and our per- 

 sonality becomes a real power, we approach the point where we 

 may even feel that we are thinking, or having divulged to us, the 

 very thoughts of God. 



No. 2. " Infinity " is non-existent, it is a self-deception, a figment 

 created by the finiteness of our senses, the necessarily pseudo- 

 conception formed by our senses which (cramped by the dominion 

 of time find space) are incapable of grasping the luhole reality. 



No. 3. " Duration " in Time and " Extension " in space, the twin 

 mysteries which ever elude our grasp when we try to analyze them 

 (because they are simply modes under which our senses act), are yet 



