Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/486

472 even ridiculed any one who thought that the river out of which the bubble arose and into which it would presently elapse, deserved recognition, would fitly typify a disciple of M. Comte, who, centering all his higher sentiments on Humanity, holds it absurd to let either thought or feeling be occupied with that great stream of Creative Power, unlimited in Space or in Time, of which Humanity is a transitory product. Even if, instead of being the dull leaden-hued thing it is, the bubble Humanity had reached that stage of iridescence of which, happily, a high sample of man or woman sometimes shows us a beginning, it would still owe whatever there was in it of beauty to that Infinite and Eternal Energy out of which Humanity has quite recently emerged, and into which it must, in course of time, subside. As with thousands of lower types of creatures which have severally illustrated the truth that the life and death of the individual prefigure in brief space the life and death of the race, so with this highest type of creature, Man: a beginning and end to Humanity are no less certain than the beginning and end to each human being. And to suppose that this relatively-evanescent form of existence ought to occupy our minds so exclusively as to leave no space for a consciousness of that Ultimate Existence of which it is but one form out of multitudes—an Ultimate Existence which was manifested in infinitely-varied ways before Humanity arose, and will be manifested in infinitely-varied other ways when Humanity has ceased to be, seems very strange—to me, indeed, amazing.

And here this contrast between the positivist view and my own view, equally marked now as it was at first, leads me to ask in what respects the criticisms passed on the article—"Religion: a Retrospect and Prospect" have affected its argument. Many years ago, as also by implication in that article, I contended that while Science shows that we can know phenomena only, its arguments involve no denial of an Existence beyond phenomena. In common with leading scientific men whose opinions are known to me, I hold that it does not bring us to an ultimate negation, as the presentations of my view made by Mr. Harrison and Sir James Stephen imply; and they have done nothing to show that its outcome is negative. Contrariwise, the thesis many years ago maintained by me against thinkers classed as orthodox, and reasserted after this long interval, is that though the nature of the Reality transcending appearances can not be known, yet that its existence is necessarily implied by all we do know—that though no conception of this Reality can be framed by us, yet that an indestructible consciousness of it is the very basis of our intelligence; and I do not find, either in Mr. Harrison's criticisms or in those of Sir James Stephen, any endeavor to prove the untruth of this thesis.