own theory is that it precedes definite thought, and is constantly assuming definite value.

This view has the support of Hamiltion. After asking the question, "Are there mental modifications,

mental activities

and passivities, of which we are unconscious, but which manifest their existence by effects of which we are conscious?" — he replies, "I do not hesitate to maintain that what we are conscious of is constructed out of what we are not conscious of, — that our whole knowledge, in fact, is made up of the unknown and incognizable." This he goes on to prove, in regard to perception, by showing that the minimum, which is possible to be observed by the senses, must be made up of parts impossible to be observed.

But sufficient, perhaps, has been said in answer to the challenge of Locke, by explaining how there can be ideas in the mind, which have not yet taken such shape in the consciousness, as to be said to be retained in the memory.

To receive The mind can "All natural

In like manner it will be seen that there is no inconsistency in claiming that an idea cannot be communicated to the mind which is not already there, potentially, and yet that the mind needs. the communication of it, in order that it may be actually there. It needs to see a definite embodiment of that idea which it holds indefinitely, in order to be conscious of it to itself. knowledge, there must be a state of preparation. receive only that which it is prepared to receive. forms," says Dr. Hill, in his article on "Symmetry in Space," "conform more or less closely to geometrical ideas; sufficiently near to suggest their ideas to men fitted to receive the suggestion.' So, when the Great Teacher sought to teach the highest truths, he bore testimony to the same necessary preparation for his teaching: "No man cometh unto me, except the Father, who hath sent me, to draw him." The Father sends, and the Father draws. God holds out the image of himself, and inwardly impels the soul of man to seek it.

As language, itself, often reveals a metaphysical truth in which it has its origin, the meaning of the word "education " has here its significance. It belongs properly to our theory, as expressing a drawing out or evolving from the mind what was already latent

there. The materialists should use rather the word "edification," implying the building up of that which was not already on the spot.*

The two schools of psychology may be in no way perhaps more vividly presented in contrast than by employing the symbols used in their illustration. Locke's favorite simile of the human mind, at its birth, is that of a white paper, on which all possible knowledge is to be written. Behold, on the contrary, the comparison of Papillon: "We might compare the soul to a paper covered with writing in sympathetic ink. At ordinary temperatures, the letters are unseen, but they appear in fine color whenever brought near the fire. So the soul has within itself dim marks and confused shapes which sensation tints and brightens. . . . In the soul dwells a miniature picture of the whole universe, and by some mystic grace of God, a dream, as it were, of that God himself. Thought consists in becoming acquainted with all the details of that picture in little, and unfolding its meaning.'

That intuition has actually preceded experience in the progress of human knowledge, is capable of fuller illustration from the history of philosophy than our limits will permit. Says Ueberweg, "The efforts of the poetic fancy to represent to itself the nature and development of things human and divine, precede, excite to, and prepare the way for philosophical inquiry." "In the pursuit of mathematical knowledge," says Dr. Hill, “men began at an early age to invent and investigate a priori laws, laws of which they had not received any suggestion from nature. And the intellectual origin of the forms of nature was made manifest when these a priori laws of man's invention were, in many cases, afterwards discovered to be truly embodied in the universe from the beginning; as for example, Plato's conic sections in the forms and orbits of the heavenly bodies, and Euclid's division in extreme and mean ratio." Tyndall shows that imagination has given us the conception of a surrounding ether, with certain properties and laws, and although its existence has not yet been demonstrated, investigation continually discovers facts to correspond with this conception. He adds: "If, in all the multiplied varieties of these phenomena, this fundamental conception always brings us

* Article in Contemoprary Review.

face to face with the truth; if no contradiction to our deductions from it be found in external nature; if, moreover, it has actually forced upon our attention phenomena which no eye had previously seen, and which no mind had previously imagined; if, by it we are gifted with a power of prescience which has never failed when brought to an experimental test, such a conception, which never disappoints us, but always lands us upon the shores of fact, must, we think, be something more than a figment of the scientific fancy."

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From the beginning, as the mind of man came to the observation of phenomena, it came suggesting an explanation of the origin and method of the attainment of their present variety. Certain grand lines of explanation are necessitated by regulative laws of human thought, inherited from the divine mind, which will be found to prevail in creation, whatever be the facts. Variety is to be explained, not as from greater variety, but from simplicity, simplicity of material, simplicity of force. Thus arose the early search for the elements, which must be homogeneous, or if heterogeneous, as few as possible in number. Forces, also, must be reduced to their minimum; there must be a force which holds together and a force which separates, for the universe is held together, and is differentiated. Radiation and rotation arise as necessary suggestions of the conception of a central agency.

So an atomic theory, a nebular hypothesis, and a doctrine of evolution, have not been wanting from the earliest speculations, even in the midst of the most imperfect knowledge of phenomena. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, 500 B.C., "assumed an unlimited number of primitive, qualitatively determinate substances, called by him seeds of things, originally in an orderless state. Mind first effected revolving motion at a single point. Out of the masses resulting from the first act, the same process being repeated, other masses were developed." For "unlimited number," read "sixty-five," and for "mind" put "condensation," and have we not here the essential ideas of Dalton and Laplace? Again, Empedocles of Agrigentum, of the same period, held that there were four primitive material elements, actuated by two forces of attraction and repulsion. "In their original condition, these elements are all mingled together, forming one all-including

sphere. By the gradual development of the influence of hate (repulsion?) the elements become separated, and individual things and beings come into existence. Of the members of the organic creation, plants sprang first from the earth; after them came the animals. At first, eyes, arms, &c., existed separately; as the result of their combination arose many monstrosities, which perished; those combinations which were capable of subsisting, persisted, and propagated themselves." In other words, Emped

ocles taught "the survival of the fittest."

By consideration, therefore, of the orderly process of the evolution of matter, of the nature of scientific investigation, of the genesis of thought, and of the history of philosophy, we have seen reasons for concluding that mind is not the last result of the development of matter, but that it originated and has forever anticipated the interpretation of that development.

In all its researches, science strikes upon a root of heredity, running back to an unknown beginning. Materialism finds that root in the primitive elements of matter. It claims that "not alone the more ignoble forms of animal life, but the human mind itself, emotion, intellect, will, and all their phenomena, were once latent in a fiery cloud; that all our poetry, all our science, and all our art, are potential in the fires of the sun."

Idealism maintains that, though the human body may be indeed, as old as the "fiery cloud" that heralded the dawn of creation, yet that the "soul is older than the body." The fibres that thrill, and the forces that thrill them, may find their origin in the fires of the sun; but the ideas they awaken, and the glories they reveal, are of that eternal inspiration which was in the beginning with God, and was God. Intelligence, wonder, love, the conviction that triumphs, and the reverence that adores, were never born of that which they control. That human life which has most glorified the world declared that its glory was with the Father before the world was.

The moral consequences attending the two theories have already been indicated. If the obligations of morality, and the sanctions of religion, have had a beginning,-if they have arisen as mere relations of matter at a certain stage of its development, — their paramount claim over other material relations, as of appetite and

desire, it will be difficult to establish. What time has made, time may unmake. They necessarily fail of that commanding authority which they have, if conceived of as rooted and grounded with our own nature in the Original Mind of the universe. In the one case, they may possibly be shaken off; in the other, it is impossible.

Idealism completes the continuity of existence. Science is constantly revealing new meanings in the old doctrine that nature abhors a vacuum. We no longer conceive of ourselves as projecting vision across empty spaces to reach the object of perception. The human organism is in tangible connection with the utmost bounds of the universe. The human body traces its pedigree to the primal elements of matter. Shall the human soul, alone, awakened in time, and destined to immortality, lose its lineage in the past? Shall that which knows no end, alone have had a beginning? JAMES C. PARSONS.

MUSCULAR ACTION.

WE have spoken of the human frame as an engine of wonderful construction, whose movements are made dependent on the human will. Yet it is manifest that more of its motions are independent of the will than are dependent upon it. The involuntary muscles, and the involuntary movements not muscular, are those which are essential to the very existence of the body. The circulation of the blood, and its purification through the alternating expansion and contraction of the chest, are obvious instances of these vital, involuntary actions. Not less important is each one of a thousand hidden operations, capillary movements, glandular secretions, the removal of the effete and the replacing of the living molecules; to say nothing of more muscular actions, the peristaltic motions, and the wonderful unconscious artifices of swallowing, coughing, sneezing, and the like.

The voluntary muscles are also capable of involuntary action. This is shown not only by occasional convulsive twitchings, or more violent convulsions, but, in a still more instructive manner,