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SYDNEY T. KLEIN, F.L.S., P.R.A.S., ON 



The Author's Reply. 



The Author. — In replying to the discussion, I cannot help 

 expressing a regret that those who have spoken have not attempted 

 to criticise the general plan of argument of the paper, especially as 

 among the Members of this Institute we have so many deep 

 thinkers who are capable of adding much to the interest of the 

 subject. Indeed, with the exception of the Chairman, not one of 

 those who took part in the discussion appears to have grasped the 

 design for which it was written. The title of the paper was 

 originally " Our Conception of the Great Reality," but our 

 Secretary, or the printer, altered this to " The Conception," and this 

 may account for one of the speakers, who seems to think the paper 

 was meant to show how the Great Reality Himself forms 

 conceptions; he, however, goes further and makes the startling 

 suggestion that God perceives by means of light, and argues from 

 this that God must see events in sequence ! Surely we cannot 

 imagine an Omniscient and Omnipresent Being receiving knowledge 

 by the perception of senses ; neither can He be said to form concep- 

 tions, He does not have even to think, for He knmvs everything. 

 Such comments come under the category of those, referred to in my 

 paper, who still look upon God as though He were a magnified man 

 with senses enormously increased, but still finite. 



The Rev. Mr. Tuckwell complains of my not putting a capital 

 " R " when I refer to the reality, and argues, from that, that I have 

 got into confusion. I would remind him that the paper in his hands 

 was an uncorrected proof struck off without my seeing it, and, 

 although in two places I find a small "r" when referring to the 

 Great Reality, which will of course be put right when the proof 

 comes into my hands for correction, in every other case the word 

 reality is meant to be written with a small " r " as referring to the 

 spiritual, the here, and the now. The whole argument of the paper 

 is not, as Mr. Tuckwell seems to think, that God is the only 

 Reality ; but that the spiritual, the here, and the now, are the only 

 absolute realities as opposed to the generally accepted idea that 

 matter, space and time are still realities even when examined apart 

 from our finite senses. He also expresses the hope that I will revise 



