Collected Works (Vol. III)

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.