394 
What is Religion ? 
[July, 
religion : when the living soul of ancient theosophies has 
departed ; when the stern beauty of divine philosophy has 
well nigh ceased to attract even youthful votaries, our on y 
hope of salvation lies in the conscientious endeavour to draw 
new life from Nature, and make Science itseif a well-spring 
of ideal truth.” With the result that it would all again be 
the old cry of the leech, give, give ! . , 
In this Hylo-Idealistic theory we have much metaphysical 
absurdity, Ego’s and non-Ego’s implying man only cognises 
himself, all else being mere images. If they be images only 
one may well be surprised at their tenacity ; they have 
existed since time was, before man’s advent on Earth, and 
probably will exist until the end of Time. # . , , , 
To grapple the problem in a philosophical spirit we should 
say that consciousness grasps the outer world, and reason 
and memory connedt it with the interior, and thus the ex- 
ternal and objective world becomes part of the self, 01 Ego, 
and it cognises the non-Ego as a part of the phenomenal 
world ; and by the process of ratiocination the Ego, the 
non-Ego, and all other phenomenal presentments, find then- 
unity in consciousness, and thus constitute for each the 
world of fadt and being. All fadts are the verifications of 
their repetition, vouched for by the senses : this is expen- 
mental evidence. , , , 
“ The fadts of memory imply that each of us has the 
power of knowing with certainty past real existences, and 
he who trusts his memory affirms this.” The memory recalls 
its experiences, and through reason has relations with things 
which had existence before the thinker, and all others of his 
generation, had being, and will exist when he and they have 
ceased to be denizens of this Earth ; e.g., Cuvier at Mont- 
matre found the skeleton of a small creature the skull ot 
which had its lower jaw bent in : trusting to his memory ot 
the past and his scientific experience, he predicated that 
when the stone was chiselled from the lower part of the 
pelvis there would be found a pair of marsupial bones, -and 
so it was : thus his memory and science made him akin to 
a fauna which had being aseons and aseons of time long 
past away, showing that in the world of fadts we have to 
do with something more than evanescent images, viz., sub- 
stantial and real substances. Cuvier did not create the 
marsupial animal ; he only discovered it. 1 his Hy o- 
Idealism is a construdtion of the imagination and ialse 
logic. Even Lewes cannot help them when he tells us 
“ that which is unpidturable may be conceivable, and the 
abstradtion which is impossible to imagination is easy to 
