ELEUSIS
229
clusively of impressions (The tendency to
certain impressions is itself a result of im-
pressions on the ancestors of the conscious
being). Locke, Hume, &c.
B. Without a consciousness no impression
can exist. Berkeley, Fichte, &c.
Both A. and B, have been proved times
without number, and quite irrefutably. Yet
they are mutually exclusive. The “ progress”
of philosophy has consisted almost entirely
of advances in accuracy of language by
rival schools who emphasised A. and RB.
alternately.
It is easy to see that all propositions can,
with a little ingenuity, be reduced to one
form or the other.! -
Thus, if I say that grass is green, I mean
that an external thing is an internal thing:
for the grass is certainly not in my eye, and
the green certainly zs in it. As all will
admit.
So, if you throw a material brick at your
wife, and hit her (as may happen to all of
us), there is a most serious difficulty in the
question, ‘‘ At what point did your (spiritual)
affection for her transform into the (material)
brick, and that again into her (spiritual)
reformation ?”’
Similarly, we have Kant’s clear proof that
in studying the laws of nature we’ only study
the laws of our own minds: since, for one
thing, the language in which we announce
a law is entirely the product of our mental
conceptions.
While, on the other hand, it is clear
enough that our minds depend upon the laws
of nature, since, for one thing, the appre-
hension that six savages will rob and murder
you is immediately allayed by the passage of
a leaden bullet weighing 230 grains, and
moving at the rate of 1200 feet per second,
through the bodies of two of the ring-
leaders.
1 Compare the problems suggested to the
logician by the various readings of propositions
in connotation, denotation, and comprehension
respectively; and the whole question of exis-
tential import.—A, C,
It would of course be simple to go on
and show that after all we attach no meaning
to weight and motion, lead and bullet, but
a purely spiritual one: that they are mere
phases of our thought, as interpreted by our
senses: and on the other that apprehension
is only a name for a certain group of chemical
changes in certain of the contents of our
very material skulls: but enough ! the whole
controversy is verbal, and no more.
Since therefore philosophy and @ fortiori
science are bankrupt, and the official receiver
is highly unlikely to grant cither a dis-
charge; since the only aid we get from the
Bishops is a friendly counsel to drink Beer
—in place of the spiritual wine of Omar
Khayyam and Abdullah el Haji (on whom
be peace !)—we are compelled to fend for
ourselves.
We have heard a good deal of late years
about Oriental religions. I am myself the
chief of sinners. Still, we may all freely
confess that they are in many ways pictur-
esque: and they do lead one to the Vision
of God face to face, as one who hath so been
led doth here solemnly lift up his voice and
testify; but their method is incredibly
tedious, and unsuited to most, if not all,
Europeans. Let us never forget that no
poetry of the higher sort, no art of the
higher sort, has ever been produced by any
Asiatic race. We are the poets! we are
the children of wood and stream, of mist
and mountain, of sun and wind! We adore
the moon and the stars, and go into the
London streets at midnight seeking Their
kisses as our birthright. We are the Greeks
—and God grant ye all, my brothers, to be
as happy in your loves !—and to us the rites
of Eleusis should open the doors of Heaven,
and we shall enter in and see God face to
face! Alas!
‘* None can read the text, not even I;
And none can read the comment but
myself.” 1
1 Tennyson must have stolen these lines;
they are simple and expressive.