526 A Geological Idea of Lord Bacon's, [September, 
therefore be at once infinite and finite. Is not this an unthink- 
able paradox ? If there be an Omnipresent Deity, nothing 
else can have any real existence, and he must, be the 
noumenon of which the Universe, subjective and objective, is 
the phenomenon. It signifies little whether this one and 
indivisible Reality be spoken of as God, Force, or Matter 
(though the last term is preferable, as being the simplest and 
least liable to misconstruction), for to us it is practically non- 
existent. No man can transcend his own Egoity or indi- 
vidual subjective Cosmos, of which his brain is the sole 
proplasm, though he may people it with Jehovah and his 
hierarchy of angels and archangels, “good ” and “evil,” with 
the humanised gods of Hellas, with the New Testament 
Trinity, or with the saints and witches, goblins and fays of 
the Middle Ages. Neither reflection nor imagination will 
enable him to get “ behind ” Nature, — itself only a mental 
abstraction, — or penetrate to the substratum of his own 
being. If he believe in an Omnipresent God, he is, as I 
have shown, logically compelled to Monism ; if not, he 
rejects “ Revelation,” and certainly will find in Science and 
Reason no foundation for Dualism. From this dilemma he 
cannot escape, and should esteem himself happy that 
“ salvation ” or health — the mens sana in corpore sano — does 
not depend upon the attainment of the unattainable, but is 
placed within the sphere of his own knowledge and ca- 
pacity. 
PS. I regret that I had not observed the correction of the 
statement respecting vegetable protoplasm in Mr. Barker’s 
paper. 
IV. A GEOLOGICAL IDEA OF LORD BACON’S. 
By Dr. O. Reichenbach. 
C:±- 
g TA)ORD BACON, not yet knowing of Australia, already 
• l C -’J drew attention to the southward directed points of 
continents as probably due to a common cause in the 
evolution of the Earth. The hint has been of no value to 
Science. 
