The Star in the West

THE NEW WINE 223 » 1 0 “ We must , therefore , know both the cause and effect , and the relation between them . But do we pretend to be acquainted with the nature of the human soul and the nature of an idea , or the aptitude of one to produce the other ? This is a real creation , a pro duction of something out of nothing ... such a power is not felt, nor known , nor even conceivable by the mind We are now fairly on our road to Crowleyanity . Having left Berkeley in the dark , feeling on the dusty shelves of his reason for a flint and steel in the spirituality of God , whereby he may burn in twain the gordian knot into which he has tangled his under standing ; we now find Hume , in a similar manner , groping for the handle of some bricked-up door, which will lead him forth from the depths of that same night in which Berkeley has already lost his way . When Hume states : “ he feels events to be con nected in his imagination ”; he is only reiterating the words of Philonous , when he says : “ I have a notion of Spirit , though I have not, strictly speaking , an idea of it . I do not perceive it as an idea , or by means of an idea , but know it by reflexion .” To which Hylas very properly replied : “ Words are not to be used with out a meaning . And , as there is no more meaning in spiritual Substance than in material Substance , the one is to be exploded as well as the other .” Philonous , in answering Hylas then asserts acquaintance with that nature of the human soul which Hume declared be inconceivable . “ How often must I repeat , that I know or am conscious of my own being ; and that I myself am not my ideas , but somewhat else , a thinking active · An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding , p. 69.