The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1908-01-02

superior mind has been weakened by
folly or vice. The entertainment of
lusts, passions and all abnormal desires
engender condition peculiarly suited
to its ravages.
Berkeley, says Huxley, asserted 'that
there is 10 substance of matter, but
only = substance of mind" Prof. Ost-
void says today that "matter is only
thing imagined The world, he says,
regards energy as "only something
imagined, something abstract, whilst
matter is an actual fact. Ianswer, it
is ths other way about! Matter is only
thing Imagined, which we have con-
structed for ourselves, very imperfect
~, to represent the constant element
in the changing series of phenomenal
At all events ifmatter does not change
in quality, color or specific gravity it
at any rate very frequently assumes
different forms and proportions. Our.
earth and its relation to other plane
tary bodies is at the presenttlsy viewed
in an altogether different light from
that which antedated Newton and
Gajileo. We no longer believe the sun
actually to rise in the East and to set
10 the West, but we do aver that ap-
pearances are strongly in favor of
such abelief. Appearances, sah there's
the rub" is the strongest and subtlest
and consequently the most dangerous
against which truth has to contend.
Strongest because they are as arule
universally accepted as true with little
or no analysis, thus finding their great
est strength in our greatest weakness.
Most subtle because they are so near
like reality they often pass unchal-
lenged for centuries. In another dec
ade Perry or = Wellman may cause
this earth to assume the form of that
o.:d-nsw toy -now being played wish by
our English cousins with SO much gus
to-the diablo. AS when the North
Pole is discovered, aud discovered it
will be, it may be found to connect us
with another sphere not dissimilar to
the one on which we live, and which is
LIGHTED by the torch of reason instead
Of Rockefeller OH.
We may justly prepare ourselves for
many kinds of innovations and mirac-
ulous changes as their continuity
doubtless willnot be broken until many
years hence. The aristocracy of China
developed q disease that naught but
high-priced American ginseng will al
Ideviate. An ingenious surgeon in
South Africa inocuiated one thousand
native miners with one can of con-
densed milk and asserts that they were
all practically immune from smailpox.
Well, why not the milk, it and the vi
rus are from the same source: Many
pr0hibitionists find several brands of
patent medicine to contain a. wonder
fpl panacea for their ills, and many
topers in prohibition places find them
to contain many good jags. So we see
all manners of peoples extracting prop
critics from matter which they endow
with aD intelligence second only to the
| first cause, and in go doing openly ad-
NIT that matter is not only substance
but it also contains quality of MUD
superior to that manifested in animate
flesh.
Each imagination constructs its ma
terialistic forms, adopts them to meet
the requirements of the times swear
ing by them just SO long as their posi-
tion is in the least tenable-until made
ludicrous by later achievements in the
same school. Since the atomic theory
has been exploded and heretofore So
called solid bodies pierced by newly
discovered rays it is an easy matter to
divide and subdivfde their molecules
and d:atoms into points and these points
into other points until finally nothing
remains but ethel, and we have that
everywhere. All superstitions resist
Hong and die hard but die they must as
when superior intelligence begins q
warfare against them it is INCREASINGLY
waged until crowned by complete VIC
tory. PAUL.