The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-09-14

but the "why Yn would still remain unanswered.
In affirming that the growth OF the body is
mechanical, and that thought, as exercised by
ms, has its correlatiye in the physics of the
brain, think the position of the ''materialist'
is stated as far as that position is tenablc one
l think the materalst will be able finally TO
maintain this position against all attacks; but
do not think, as the human mind is at present
constituted, that he can pass beyond it. ] do
not think he Is entitled to say, that his molecu-
lar groupings and his molecular motions explain
everything. In reality, they explain nothing.
The utmost he can affirm Is the association
of two classes of phenomena, of whose
real boHd OF union he is in absolute
Ignorance. The problem of the connection of
body and soul is as insoluble in its modern form
as 1t was In the pre- scientific ages. Phosphorus
is known to enter into the composition of the
human brain, aud courageous writer has ex-
claimed, In his trenchant German, "0hne Phos-
phor klein Gedauke.r That may or may not be
the case but even IL we knew it to be the case the
knowledge would not tighten our darkness, On
both sides OF the zone here assigned to the ma
teriaist he is equally helpless. If you ask him
whence is this matter Of which we have been
discoursing, who or what divided it into MOLE
cules, who or what impressed upon them this
necessity OF running into organic forms, he has
no answer. Science also Is mute in reply to
these questions. But If the materialist is con-
is entitled to snswerY To whom has the
secret been revealed. Let us lower our
heads and !, acknowledge. our ignorance,
resolve itself into knowledge at some future
day. The process of things upon this earth has
been one of amelioration. 1t is q long way from
the Iguanadon and his contemporaries to the
President and members of the British Associa-
ton. And whether we regard the improvement
from the scientific or from the theological point
of view-as the result of progressive develop
meDt, or as the result of successive exhibitions
OF creative energy-neither view entities us to
assume that mans present faculties end the
series; that the process of amelioration stops at
him. A time may therefore come when this ultra
scientific region by which we are now enfolded
may offer itself to terrestrial, if not to human
investigation. Two-thirds of the rays emitted
by the sun fail to arouse in the eye the sense
OF vision. The rays exist, but the visual
organ requisite for their translation into light
does not exist. And so from this region of
darkness and mystery which surrounds us, rays
may now be darting which require but the de-
velopment of the proper intellectual organs to
translate them into kno wledge as far SURPRISING
ours as ours does that of the wallowing reptiles
which once held possession of this planet
Meanwhile the mystery is not without its uses.
1t certainly may be made power in the human
soul; but it is power which has feeling, not
knowledge tor Its base. 1t may be, and will be,
and we hope is, turned to account, both in
steadyng and strengthening the intellect, and
in rescuiDg man from that littleness to which,
in the struggle for existence, or for precedence
in the world, he is continually prone.