3go What is Religion ? [J u ly> 
have been suggested by Prof. Huxley, who is twitted with 
the endeavour to make men know how little they know. 
The Bishop of Manchester says “The Agnostic neither 
denied nor affirmed God ; he simply puts him on one side. 
It is a higher grade of mind to refuse to discuss that deemed 
unfathomable because it cannot be reached by the scientific 
method, than to deny in toto the existence of a ci eating God 
and substitute in his place the thinks of individuals whose 
only possibilities of information are sense impressions, i he 
presentment of a tree, a flower, or a creature to one of these 
great thinkers should shame such a proposition into an uttei 
confusion. Thinks, what thinks!! the _ impression of the 
surfaces of images on the senses. Well it may be held that 
the animal instinaives and man’s mind are the same in 
calibre and substance, for so far do some of our savants 
carry their theses, presenting, as some do, the very com- 
monest and necessary and unmistakable animal habiu as the 
proof of a discriminating mind ! Both animals and men 
have their tribal distinaives, differing in both with^the 
species, but man has, in addition to animal instinaives, the 
power of forming abstraa ideas, such as humanity, truth, 
&c. ; a power of apprehending not only existing objects, but 
also the faa of their existence ; a power of refleaing on 
their own being and consciousness ; a power (by voluntary 
attention) of recalling, or seeking to recall to mind our past 
thoughts ; a power of uniting two simple intelleaual appre- 
hensions into an explicit affirmation or negation, that is, 
power of judgment ; a power of induaion ; a powei of true 
inference, of intelleaual emotions; a power of expressing 
intelleaual feelings and ideas by definite external signs, 
intelleaual language, and a true power of will.” 
We are also told that if we were consistent we should renew 
the old doarine not only of an animal, but also of a vegetal 
soul. This subjea was discussed at the meeting of the 
German Association at Munich (1877), and was asserted by 
Nageli and Haeckel, and repudiated by Virchow. Nageli 
no doubt founded his argument on the Aristotelian idea, 
which was utterly distffia from the theological meaning of 
the word soul. The Ancients considered the soul as the 
unifying power which makes vital activities a synthesis, 01 
the bond which makes the varied activities and weaknesses 
an united power. As an illustration may be cited the old 
man and the bundle of sticks, the cord which binds them 
making their synthesis, — afaggot, — weak individually, strong 
as a whole ; and thus the animus mundi was a grand idea — 
multiety in unity. 
