uing from the mere absence of some special experience,
but from the whole character of _all_ the thought and experience that
we actually possess, of all that we are and the whole Universe with
which we are in contact. The characteristic of the whole world which
we know is that it consists of mind and matter in close connexion--we
may waive for a moment the nature of that connexion. Is it more
probable that the ultimate Reality which lies beyond our reach should
be something which possesses the characteristics of mind, or that it
should {24} be totally unlike either mind or matter? Do you insist
that we logically ought to say it might contain the characteristics of
both mind and matter? There is only one way in which such a
combination seems clearly thinkable by us, _i.e._ when we represent
matter as either in the idealistic sense the thought or experience of
mind, or (after the fashion of ordinary realistic Theism) as created or
produced by mind. But if you insist on something more than this, if
you want to think of the qualities of matter as in some other way
included in the nature of the ultimate Reality as well as those of
mind, at all events we could still urge that we shall get nearer to the
truth by thinking of this ultimate Reality in its mind-aspect than by
thinking of it in its matter-aspect.

I do not believe that the human mind is really equal to the task of
thinking of a Reality which is one and yet is neither mind nor matter
but something which combines the nature of both. Practically, where
such a creed is professed, the man either thinks of an unconscious
Reality in some way generating or evolving mind, and so falls back into
the Materialism which he has verbally disclaimed; or he thinks of a
mind producing or causing or generating a matter which when produced is
something different from itself. This last is of course ordinary
Theism in the form in which it is commonly {25} held by those who are
not Idealists. From a practical and religious point of view there is
nothing to be said against such a view. Still it involves a Dualism,
the philosophical difficulties of which I have attempted to suggest to
you. I confess that for my own part the only way in which I can
conceive of a single ultimate Reality which combines the attributes of
what we call mind with those of what we know as matter is by thinking
of a Mind conscious of a world or nature which has no existence except
in and for that Mind and