s, not a distinct
thing only, but also an opposite thing; and that our confessed impotence
to form any conjecture at all as to the first, does not in the least
exonerate us from choosing between conjectures as to the second.

As to the first question, our discovery of the fact it is concerned
with, and our utter inability to account for this fact, has really no
bearing at all upon the great dilemma--the dilemma as to the unity or
the dualism of existence, and the independence or automatism of the life
and will of man. All that science tells us on this first head the whole
world may agree with, with the utmost readiness; and if any theologian
'_hacks and scourges_' Dr. Tyndall for his views thus far, he must,
beyond all doubt, be a very foolish theologian indeed. The whole bearing
of this matter modern science seems to confuse and magnify, and it
fancies itself assaulted by opponents who in reality have no existence.
Let a man be never so theological, and never so pledged to a faith in
myths and mysteries, he would not have the least interest in denying
that the brain, though we know not how, is the only seat for us of
thought and mind and spirit. Let him have never so firm a faith in life
immortal, yet this immortal has, he knows, put on mortality, through an
inexplicable contact with matter; and his faith is not in the least
shaken by learning that this point of contact is the brain. He can admit
with the utmost readiness that the brain is the only instrument through
which supernatural life is made at the same time natural life. He can
admit that the moral state of a saint might be detected by some form of
spectroscope. At first sight, doubtless, this may appear somewhat
startling; but there is nothing really in it that is either strange or
formidable. Dr. Tyndall says that the view indicated can, '_he thinks_,'
be maintained '_against all attack_.' But why he should apprehend any
attack at all, and why he should only '_think_' it would be
unsuccessful, it is somewhat hard to conceive. To say that a
spectroscope as applied to the brain might conceivably detect such a
thing as sanctity, is little more than to say that our eyes as applied
to the face can actually detect such a thing as anger. There is nothing
in that doctrine to alarm the most mystical of believers. In the
completeness with which it is now brought before us it is doubtless new
and wonderful, and will doubtless tend presently to clarify human
thought. But