molecular changes in the nerve-fibres; but these material disturbances of the nervous system do not themselves feel or think or will. They are not conscious of themselves; and therefore they cannot in the least degree do away with the necessity for a sentient, percipient, intelligent mind. This has been sometimes acknowledged even by writers of the Positive school, like John Stuart Mill and Professor Tyndall. You may follow up nervous vibrations to their last flutter in the brain, but the material flutter is not consciousness, bears not the slightest resemblance to consciousness, throws no light whatsoever upon any of the phenomena of consciousness. that physiology in reality can do nothing more than lead us up to the mystery of mind; it can neither explain that mystery nor explain it away. So In addition to the common consciousness of our everyday working life, there are also inner recesses of consciousness (so to speak) which can be even less explained, if that were possible, by the methods and formulæ of physics. We sometimes experience such an awe, such a faith, such unutterable yearnings, such an agony of grief, such a rapture of hope, as may alone suffice for proof that we are some thing more than, something other than, dust. "So long," says Ruskin, " as you have that fire of the heart within you, and know the reality of it, you need be under no alarm as to its chemical or mechanical analysis. The philosophers are very humorous in their ecstasy of hope about it, but the real interest of their discoveries in this direction is very small to human kind. It is quite true that the tympanum of the ear vibrates under sound, and that the surface of the water in a ditch vibrates too; but the ditch hears nothing for all that, and my hearing is still to me as blessed a mystery as ever, and the interval between the ditch and me quite as great. If the trembling sound in my ears was once of the marriage bells which began my happiness, and is now of the passing bell which ends it, the difference between those two sounds to me cannot be counted by the number of concussions. There have been some curious speculations lately as to the conveyance of mental changes by brain-waves. What does it matter how they are conveyed? The consciousness itself is not a wave: it may be accompanied here and there by any quantity of quivers and shakes of anything you can find in the universe that is shakeable. What is that to me? My friend is dead, and my-according to modern viewsvibratory sorrow is not one whit less, or less mysterious, than my old quiet one." The attempt, then, to ignore the supernatural is most unphilosophical. But we are so terribly afraid nowadays of being over-credulous. We should remember, however, that believing too much is not the only sign of a weak mind. We may show our mental incapacity by believing too little. He who regards a human being as a mere mass of nerves, he who maintains that there is nothing in Nature but a mechanical combination of atoms, must be a very superficial thinker. The chemical analysis of a tear into oxygen, hydrogen, chlorine, and sodium is not a complete explanation of the mystery of grief: nor is the supernaturalness of Nature disproved by the fact that it cannot be depicted upon the retina of the eye. It may be discovered by the mind: it may be felt by the heart. Let us search diligently until we find it. "When thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou shalt seek Him with thy whole heart." "God's in matter everywhere: Flower, bird, beast, and man and woman, Earth and water, fire and air, All divine is all that's human. R Only matter's dense opaqueness Checks God's light from shining through it; Till Love lends the world translucence: Which teaches us how we should call things." 259 Science and Religion. III. THE NATURALNESS OF THE SUPERNATURAL. "The Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."-JAMES i. 17. IT T is interesting and suggestive to observe how, with the progress of science, our notions of the universe have been revolutionised. Once men believed in the universal reign of caprice; now they believe in the universal reign of law. Formerly earth and air and sea were peopled with a host of imaginary beings, and the human race was supposed to be at the mercy of their changeable whims or of their unchangeable vindictiveness. It was thought that any one of them, if strong enough to prevail over the rest, might alter the course of nature at a moment's notice. Religion, therefore, consisted in appeas |