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former average state commences, and works out a restoration to pristine form 
by natural law” (par. 35). 
Now I lay stress on this because facts like these are just as true as that 
twice two are four, and it is important to bear in mind that not one of these 
facts has been altered by anything done on the other side. You may take 
a sponge or a cork and hold it under water and so long as you hold it there 
it will remain submerged, but the day will come when you cannot hold it 
down any longer, and then, by an inherent virtue or property of its nature it 
comes to the surface. You can alter the limits within limits, but you cannot 
remove them, and the tendency to the former average state recommences. 
In his 38th paragraph Mr. Pattison says : — 
“ The observed order of things is that instinct has its barriers as well as 
its laws.” 
Of course this is so, and instinct in the same species was the same in 
remote ages as it is to-day. If instinct had not its barriers, the instinct of 
the beaver of to-day would be a different thing from the instinct of the beaver 
in former times. Then Mr. Pattison asks a little further on : — “ How are 
these physical processes connected with the facts of consciousness ? ” There 
is a very remarkable passage in Professor Huxley, and we need nothing 
further. We are anxious to vindicate that there is a spirit in man, and that 
the Almighty giveth him understanding. Now it is well known that it takes 
about seven years for the change of the whole of the constituent portions of 
our bodies ; but though this is so, the inhabitant is still the same. Do you 
know this by consciousness ? What is consciousness ? Nobody knows, and 
I am only saying this as a reason for dwelling so strongly on Professor 
Huxley’s admission, when he says : “ How it came about that consciousness 
should be associated with the irritation of nervous tissue, is as utterly in- 
comprehensible as that the djin should appear in the Arabian story at the 
rubbing of the lamp.” We have Professor Huxley telling us, that it is 
utterly incomprehensible why he should be conscious of anything. After 
all there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of in our philosophy, 
and we have to fall back on the old truth, that “ there is a spirit in man, 
and the Almighty hath given him understanding.” In his 47th paragraph 
Mr. Pattison says : — 
“We are constantly told .... that the phenomena do, in fact, 
make and modify the laws.” 
Mr. Pattison objects to this statement, but I do not object to it at all. 
I make a point of surrendering everything that these men can make a fair 
pretence of asking me to surrender, and therefore I give that up. Even if 
it were not so I would still give it up, and would ask : “ Well, gentlemen, 
what makes the phenomena ? ” “ Why the nature of the thing ? ” “ Then 
what makes the nature of the thing ? ” I do not like the use of the word 
“ law” at all. You remember what Chambers, the author of the Vestiges of 
