253 
feeling, we should be as far as ever from the solution of the 
problem : How are these physical processes connected with 
the facts of consciousness.”* Indeed, it might have been 
concluded, that as it is admittedly impossible to understand 
the mode in which the physical forces exchange into each 
other, it is not to be expected that we should comprehend 
how they are related to mental or nervous conditions. 
42. Mr. Herbert Spencer has well expressed the limita- 
tions of human knowledge. Supposing the man of science, 
“ in every case able to resolve the appearances, properties, 
and movements of things into manifestations of force in space 
and time, he still finds that Force, Space, and Time pass all 
understanding. Similarly, though the analysis of mental 
actions may finally bring him down to sensations, as the 
original materials out of which all thought is woven, yet he is 
little forwarder ; for he can give no account either of sensa- 
tions themselves, or of that something which is conscious of 
sensations. Objective and subjective things he thus ascer- 
tains to be alike inscrutable in their substance and genesis. 
In all directions his investigations eventually bring him face 
to face with an insoluble enigma. He learns at once the 
greatness and the littleness of the human intellect.”! 
43. Our knowledge of G-od is of course limited, both by the 
extent of our faculties and the mode of His manifestations. 
He is represented to us by qualities existing in ourselves. 
Hence the enormous addition to our knowledge afforded by 
the Incarnation. 
44. The idea of the personality of God is expressive of self- 
imposed (and, of course, self- variable) limits, as for the purpose 
of a manifestation of Himself ; but all human personality is 
only another term for special limitation by paramount law or 
adaptation. The common belief of mankind that we are 
formed, soul and body, by some superior hand, bears testimony 
to the conviction of our limited nature. True, we are a law 
unto ourselves in the matter of our will, but we cannot escape 
into the infinite, either by way of our will or by way of 
evolution, for we are everywhere subject to law. 
45. We find limits where our curiosity would most desire 
that there should be none, — at the extremes of psychology and 
physiology, the relations between mind and matter. The 
functions of these two are not relations of exchange or con- 
version, or progression, but of adaptiveness. Each is at the 
summit of its own series of facts ; and, that each corresponds 
with the other, is the ultimate observation we can make. 
* Fragments of Science , p. 6. t First Principles, p. 66. 
VOL. XII. 
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