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have here a singular reproduction of ancient Platonism, though no doubt 
with a certain Swedenborgian light and colouring. Positivism is but a con- 
fession— an ignominious, ignoble confession of incapacity in the direction of 
all the nobler and higher attributes of our being. We cannot be content 
with simply acknowledging and cataloguing and classifying the facts. If 
we are to go into the world of causation, we cannot help going more or less 
into the spheres which these speculations bring before our view ; because 
we have to collate our conceptions of that invisible world of causation 
with the world of phenomena and of effects, with all the varied wealth 
of scientific fact which scientific discovery has brought before our view. 
That wherever science meanders we must more or less have around us a 
margin of the invisible causal region, which must correspond with the 
meanderings, infinite and everlasting, of that scientific world. I myself 
hold that there must be a sphere with which this invisible sphere is 
implicated and intermingled — that there must be an unseen universe 
essentially related to this visible universe, anterior to it, at least in our 
conception, and transcending it ; and which belongs also to the everlasting 
existences which lie around it : and 1 cannot help thinking that in this 
invisible region — this unseen universe — there must be continually dwelling 
and living, powers and forces, which are more or less involved in the great 
drama of this life which we have to live, and those events that have here to 
be worked out. This is not unscientific, as I believe, but perfectly scientific, 
and if this be borne in mind, it leaves a sufficient margin for the solution — 
no, I will not say for the solution, but for the harmonizing with all else 
that we know of those great and difficult questions which are perpetually 
perplexing us. 
The further discussion of Dr. Irons’ paper was postponed, and the 
meeting was then adjourned. 
