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« It appears to us that scientific logic points to an unseen universe, and 
scientific analogy to the spirituality of the unseen. 
“ We have great difficulty in believing that science can do more, and think 
that with regard to any further knowledge of the spiritual side of the unseen 
we must rely upon the testimony that has reached us from this region or 
in other words — Revelation. 
“ There is tbusa species of testimony which is entirely above science, using 
the word in its usual acceptation. The only question is whether along with 
this testimony we have not certain references to a region of things which 
perhaps scientific thought can approach to, and whether the two state- 
ments are consistent with each other. This possibly is a point on which 
different minds will always differ — to our minds there is a strong consistency 
between what may be called these two accounts. 
Mr. W. E. W. Morrison.— I have read the book entitled “ The Unseen 
Universe” with very great care; and I have also read Professor Cliffords 
article upon it in the Fortnightly Review. In the first place, with reference 
to Dr. Irons’ analysis of the book, there was one point which he did not 
appear to me quite to grasp. In reference to a breach of continuity in the 
creation of matter from a perfect fluid, he accuses the author of adopting the 
theory of Sir William Thomson— the theory of vortex rings in a perfect 
fluid. 
Dr. Irons. — No. I said they hesitated to adopt it. 
Mr. Morrison. — Yes ; but you say they do nearly adopt it, whereas they 
do not adopt it, but put it aside for a theory of their own. They say that 
we were developed out of an imperfect fluid which forms the unseen universe 
around us, and that that unseen universe is generated from another, still more 
refined, and so on, until we are led up finally to the Creator. But Dr. Irons 
does not lay sufficient stress upon one important fact, namely, that however 
far these writers go, their theory leaves a breach of continuity at the point 
where the highest universe in the ascending scale connects itself with the 
Creator, although they say that such a breach is unscientific. If, they say, 
the unseen universe is conditioned, the Creator cannot have formed it 
directly, because He is unconditioned, and such a thing would be a breach 
of continuity. Dr. Irons denies that the principle of continuity holds for 
ever, and that is really the vital question. If the believers in the scientific 
principle of continuity maintain that it is infinite, they never will find any 
position in which they can meet those who take the religious side. No one 
taking the religious side can accept any theory which denies the possibility 
of a breach of continuity. In treating of the miracles worked by Christ 
upon earth, the authors try to get over the fact that they are breaches of 
continuity, and they get hold of something like Malebranche’s occasional 
* “ The authors of ‘ The Unseen Universe ’ do not homologate Dr. Irous 
statement of their purpose.” 
